Review – Cold Case Hammarskjöld Trendy Blogger

Cold Case Hammarskjöld is a documentary examining the 1961 plane accident that killed Hammarskjöld and suggesting the involvement of the right -wing militia acting for mining companies targeting Hammarskjöld. He examines how the acquired interests of companies have been alarmed by the manifest anti-colonialism of the UN chief. It also includes a provocative statement that the same white supremist groups were involved in military armaments – also hosted AIDS (and exploited) biffles clinics in South Africa to help it disseminate it. The intrigue of the film is difficult to follow for those who do not know the idiosyncrasies of the time, so sums up here.

The film is studying the possibility that the Hammarskjöld plane, which crashed into northern rhodesia, was killed by the Belgian-British mercenary pilot Jan Van Risseghem, hired by Shady Corporate interests. After unsuccessful attempts to prove in a conclusive way that theory, it concentrates suspicions on the South African Maritime Research Institute (Saimr), with two new witnesses. Cinemographically, the sections of the film are meta-cinematics, representing sequences of the plot Docudrama representing two African secretaries reflecting on the motivations of the filmmaker. There are images of contemporary news useful from the time, and its intertwining with these stories is convincing.

Regarding the new physical evidence of plane crushing, the path is cold. Mads Brügger joins forces with Swedish journalist Göran Björkdahl, who thought he had part of the Douglas DC-6B plane in Albertina. They study the theory that a Magister of Fouga CM.170 killed Albertina near Ndola, after a bomb plan failed in Lubumbashi. It is not authenticated. Near Ndola airport, Brügger and Björkdahl (probably) locate the buried wreck of Albertina, but are ultimately prohibited by those responsible for the state of the excavation.

The film moved to South Africa, where in 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed a document on the assassination of Hammarskjöld. Brügger and Björkdahl Traces Saimr, through his deceased chief, Keith Maxwell. Brügger and Björkdahl recover the second part of Maxwell’s autobiography, which alleges Saimr’s involvement in the assassination of Hammarskjöld. The last part of the film advances two new witnesses as an animal member of Saimr. They allege that Saimr was a great organization of a clandestine mercenary.

The first witness says that the playing card represented in one of the photos of the Hammarskjöld corpse is a secret signal of CIA involvement. It is plausible that TRC references to Hammarskjöld have not been adequately analyzed. These articles, regraded as credible by the TRC, certainly suggest that a white militia, operating with the support of the CIA and the British intelligence, orchestrated the tragedy of the 1961 aircraft.

The film, which won prizes to the Sundance Film Festival 2019, not only raises the question of international collusion in the alleged adventure of the Hammarskjöld plane, but just as sinister suggestions on AIDS. In the film, a former member of the militia (and affiliate of Saimr) claims that his organization used false vaccinations in the early 1990s to spread HIV, it was that it was a large operation White supremist black. “We were at war,” said the former member of the militia, Alexander Jones. “Blacks in South Africa were the enemy.” These allegations were vigorously challenged by the medical and scientific community.

Indeed, after the release of the film, the AIDS experts said that the claim of the film – which appeared in interviews with the former member of the Militia, were only a conspiracy theory. “A dangerous consequence of these allegations is that they have the potential to sow the distrust and suspicion of doctors and the medical establishment, and that they can confuse people on the transmission of HIV,” said Rebecca Hodes, Director of AIDS Research and the Société de la Société Unit at the University of CAP.

There is no medical consensus why HIV has hit sub -Saharan Africa so difficult. This disagreement and disproportionately high infection rates in blacks have given rise to conspiracy theories, in particular that the disease had been created perverse during the faulty years of white supremacist rule. Jones said that the extremists have deployed science “to eradicate blacks”. While the filmmakers present Mr. Jones as a whistle, there are inconsistencies in the evidence he presents during the film. Medical science on “the abuse of right medicine” also seems false.

It should be noted that when the filmmakers shared their data and sought joint authority with the New York Times, the latter decreased. There is (however) a warning made by Danish producer Peter Engel that: “Journalists … should take care to contextualize allegations” and to consider that modern medical clinics … are regulated in a way that did not exist in The 1980s at the end of the Apartheid era. What is refreshing in the work of these two journalists is that far from behaving like cranks, they have undertaken exhaustive old -fashioned reports, interviewing eyewitnesses to the accident and looking for people who knew these mysterious AIDS clinics.

A United Nations panel concluded that there was “persuasive evidence that the plane was subjected to a form of attack or threat”. No measure has ever been taken in response to these critical conclusions. We are also told that the right -wing militias have been accused of blatant violence of power, in particular the murder of their former researcher, Dagmar Feil in 1990. The right -wing extremist Keith Maxwell, remains a mysterious figure. Hammarskjold’s documents that surfaced in the late 1990s could well involve Maxwell in the potential decline in the UN plane, but they remain not verified.

Saimar recruited former military agents for foreign operations. Maxwell, who would have died in 2006, certainly organized medical clinics in South Africa while being cited as “the hope that AIDS could decimate the black population”. This hyperbole is a long step compared to a germinal war campaign, but it suspects. Adrian Hadland, from Stirling University, interviewed Maxwell and was warned of his claims. This writer would suggest that a “joker” as Maxwell could have motivation, but this film failed to deliver tangible evidence.

The film is directed by Mads Brugger, a Danish journalist who previously played as a European -central authority in Central Africa in the 2012 documentary, “The Ambassador”. Because of this film on “Passports for sale”, Liberia took legal action to continue Brügger, although Denmark was not invited to the extradition of Brügger. However, it should be noted that Brugger has a reputation for a diligent research.

If we had to describe the international reception on the authenticity of the conduct of Hammarskjöld in Cold Case, it would be “very skeptical”. As for the credibility of the main apparent conclusions of the film (A) that the Hammarskjold plane was probably shot in a blow organized by mining interests, and that (b) the same outfit was also engaged in black operations such as the Diffusion of aid, the summary would have been the same.

However, where this film has a final point, it is the reluctance to investigate properly in two important allegations. On this subject, the film has a solid argument. What filmmakers try to do in an amateur way, for example, to dig the site, and to extend Saimar, are the two tasks that should have been carried out professionally at the time. No party has yet expressed its interest in the main-scale medico-legal investigation. Modern investigation techniques are very likely to add to our factual knowledge on questions that almost certainly concern serious harm.

The theories of the conspiracy proliferate when the good investigation is not carried out, so this film adds to our basis of evidence. We must now check the plane site and the condition of Maxwell clinics. Inferences on the Hammarskjold plane and AIDS vaccination seem bizarre without an independent investigation, and this film suggests merit in such work. In July 2019, Cold Case Hammarskjöld was nominated for a lux prize in the European Parliament. He has now won many international prizes. It is suggested that this certainly supports more investigation reports.

From the point of view of the IR, the most salient point is that we have a “smoking pistol” film. The plane accident and any involvement of right -wing groups in public health deserve an in -depth examination of the trusted authorities. The alternative is inactive speculation or even worse, the conviction that the international community prefers to ignore the truth. When Sergio de Mello was killed in the UN gross embarrassment in Baghdad in August 2003, it seemed that the file could not be closed quickly enough. For those who remembered 1961, it had to seem to be a story repeating itself.

The producers of Cold Case Hammarskjöld have gathered new witnesses and an opinion of unknown experts (such as former American defense officer Charles Southall), and their film shows that key questions deserve to answer. What these journalists show is probably something that is no less important than what they have proven – that the international community and the UN itself – should encourage transparency on critical events of the past.

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