Who Controls South Africa? (part 3) - Cold Case Apartheid & the Blood of the U.N.
A crazy crime story that travels from Europe to South Africa - assassinations, the attempted extermination of black South Africans, and the theft of billions by the outgoing Apartheid government.
This is one of the finest examples of politics not being what we think it is. Power manufactures, and then sells a product to us.
We’re going to travel deep into the dark hearts of white men wanting to control Africa, from colonialists to modern neoliberals. Awkwardly, South Africa’s black ANC government could be an accomplice.
By the end of this article, I hope you feel manipulated because there’s education in that.
Let’s begin by breaking down one of the strangest and most fascinating documentaries, and then go swimming in the consequent blood of geopolitics.
‘Cold Case Hammarskjöld’ is unique. It’s occasional deadpan humour, in the first half, flies in plane-crashing contrast to the chills, sadness and anger that eventually imploded me.
Did South Africa, with assistance from MI5, the domestic intelligence branch of the British Government, attempt to infect Africans with HIV via fake vaccinations?
That question becomes only part of the jigsaw as investigator Göran Bjorkdahl and documentarian Mads Brugger seek to discover who assassinated United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961.
THE ASSASSINATION OF THE UN SECRETARY-GENERAL
Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary General, made a mistake. He believed that his actions had to match the noble goals the UN had put on paper. Believing that every country should be able to control its own affairs, he did his best to assist African states that had been, or were about to become, emancipated from colonial powers.
The movie asserts that his moral efforts made him the enemy of corporations and countries such as Britain and the USA. He had to be killed.
The plane that carried him and 15 others crashed in Northern Rhodesia, now modern day Zambia, on 18 September 1961. The situation was extremely suspicious, and murder was an option.
The motivation for assassination isn’t far-fetched in that the USA and Belgium were linked to the assassination of Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba the year before. Prior to that, the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, tried to control the uranium in that area (which was the source for the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
The war for the control of African economies remains to this day.
Was South Africa involved in Hammarskjöld’s death? It appears so, but that aspect becomes overshadowed by the other dark deeds of the shadowy organisation allegedly involved.
THE SINISTER SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR MARITIME RESEARCH
Just before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cames to an end in 1998, it produces a document that’s the plan for the assassination of the Swedish Dag Hammarskjöld.
The protagonist is the South African Institute for Maritime Research (SAIMR), a possible partnership between mercenaries and the intelligence services of South Africa, the UK and the USA.
It’s leader, Keith Maxwell, who self-labelled himself as ‘Commander’, was allegedly at the crash site of the UN Secretary General’s plane.
There is nothing about Maxwell and SAIMR on South Africa’s massive history website. Maybe that’s because it past corporate funders are the usual players influencing South Africa’s politics. The TRC’s documents have also disappeared.
Flash forward 20-30 years, and one of his projects finds Maxwell pretending to be a doctor, opening clinics to service poor blacks from the townships of South Africa. It’s claimed that the main base of operations for this project was in Mozambique.
Circumstantial evidence points to his purpose being the infection of black people with HIV for the purpose of white supremacy. The New York Times unconvincingly dismissed it as a conspiracy theory and suspiciously shifted blame to Russian propaganda.
Science suggests that their attempts would’ve been unsuccessful but the fact they they tried, possibly with assistance from Western democracies, is sufficient for goosebumps.
The lack of ethics isn’t so shocking as to be unbelievable. Around the same period, motivated by profit, drug companies and the British National Health Service treated haemophiliac patients with blood from the USA that they knew may be infected with HIV. Thousands of patients died as result.
Alexander Jones, a former soldier for SAIMR, is the biggest revelation. He left South Africa before the film’s release. He was reported to have been in contact with the United Nations. Impartial interrogation of Jones is essential.
YOUNG WOMEN ASSASSINATED?
An interesting sub-plot is the alleged murders of SAIMR research staff, as part of the cover-up. That included two beautiful, young ladies.
Debbie Campbell was recruited whilst still in High School. She went missing and is feared dead like Dagmar Feil.
Feil had intended becoming a whistleblower before she was stabbed to death in 1990. She knew she’d be killed, telling her brother, Karl Feil, a few weeks before.
He asserts that the police were unwilling to investigate. Understand how bizarre that was at the time – pretty, white women murdered would normally have resulted in a frenzy of action by the Apartheid authorities and expectation by the Media and Public.
‘Commander’ Maxwell appears to have been a psychopath. The sole contrary fact is that, before he disappeared, he left notes about SAIMR with Dagmar and Karl’s mother. Did Maxwell feel guilty about Dagmar’s murder, or was he hoping that his legacy would be uncovered?
Karl claims that the TRC repeatedly refused to hear his mother, unwilling to investigate SAIMR.
That reluctance continues, the ANC-led government of South Africa refusing to fully cooperate with the investigation by the United Nations. The UK and the USA have also been hindering.
Their reaction suggests conspiracy bigger than transitional periods such as Apartheid and Rainbow Nation, that ideologies and opposing governments are only floating islands in a river of power that never stops flowing.
DISTURBING SOUTH AFRICAN PARTNERSHIPS
There are uncomfortable moments in South African history that appear to be companions to the events in the documentary.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a sham. It never investigated the corporations that profited out of the slavery of black and brown people. It left foreign sanction busters alone. Instead, the ANC allowed those companies to relocate their criminal profits to London.
The ANC were supposed to be the enemies of the racist National Party Government yet appear to have been its partners. The ANC allowed National Party leaders to remove R30-billion from the country via an operation called Project Spear. Part of South Africa’s gold supply was stolen. It could also be viewed as a golden handshake during a change in management (but with the owners remaining the same).
As late as 2012, during the reign of Jacob Zuma whom many perceived as the defender against capitalism, the SABC (State-funded TV) stopped a documentary about Project Spear from being broadcast. Zuma was probably unaware, which would mean that the real controllers of South Africa and the mass that is Government are larger than a president.
The first significant action by Cyril Ramaphosa, when he became interim President in 2018, was to visit the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is an organisation for corporations that many consider to be the the biggest unchecked forces in the world. Did Ramaphosa bow to Power?
The Reserve Bank, one of the world’s few that are privately owned, has refused independent audit.
Ex-Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and ex-South African Reserve Bank Manager Tito Mboweni were accused of participating in the cover-up of Project Spear. I do not have the means to know if there’s truth to that, but without transparency, it’s worrying that they were among Ramaphosa’s strongest allies.
Ramaphosa then made Mboweni the Finance Minister, and Gordhan the State Enterprises Minister.
PROJECT SPEAR
OBSTRUCTED INVESTIGATIONS
The first UN report into the death of Secretary-General Hammarskjöld was completed in 2013. Three of its four commissioners were from the countries that would prove obstructive - the UK, Sweden and South Africa.
Judge Mohamed Chande Othman was the ‘eminent person’ charged to pursue further investigation. In his October 2017 report, he observed that:
“Far from approaching the possible limit of our understanding, the deeper we have gone into the searches, the more relevant information has been found.”
In August 2019, he submitted another report - ‘Investigation into the conditions and circumstances resulting in the tragic death of Dag Hammarskjöld and of the members of the party accompanying him’.
He urged more cooperation from nine key countries, later increased to 14.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres presented Judge Othman’s report to the UN General Assembly, together with his recommendations for further action.
In 2020, after pressure, the South African government stated it would renew its search for information into the South African Maritime Institute (SAIMR) and Operation Celeste.
On April 14 2022, a sensational article was published by true Blue, a publication monitoring the UN. It was called ‘The Missing Link in a UN Cold Case? A French Death Warrant Against Dag Hammarskjold Comes to Light’. The following is an extract.
“…a new discovery in French government archives may bring researchers closer to the truth and answer a famous Cold War riddle: Who killed Hammarskjold?
The discovery of an important clue happened in November 2021… It began with a yellow folder… and the words “TRÈS SECRET” written across the top in a red stamp… The file from the French intelligence service (SDECE), dated July 1961 and destined for French Prime Minister Michel Debré, was kept in the French National Archives. It contained a typewritten death warrant against UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, issued by a mysterious executive committee complainuing about the behaviour of Mister Hammarskjoeld in Tunisia’ and ‘asserting that Hammarskjold’s ‘angst of the Russians’ made him ‘change his mind and decide to support them in the Congo…’
The warrant had no signature. Just three letters and a notorious acronym: OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète, or Secret Armed Organization), a far-right French dissident paramilitary group opposing Algerian independence and the the Gaullist regime. The clandestine movement, which was mostly operational from 1961 to 1962, even tried to murder President Charles de Gaulle on Aug. 22, 1962. It killed 1,700 to 2,200 people, mostly French and Algerian civilians, French soldiers, police officers, politicians and civil servants, during its brief existence.
Somehow, the death warrant — a facsimile that seemed to be a transcription of an original letter — ended up in the personal files of a legendary man from the shadows and chief adviser to President de Gaulle on African affairs and mastermind of the ‘Françafrique’ networks, Jacques Foccart.
The document appears to be authentic, given the fact that it was found in Foccart’s confidential files preserved by the French National Archives…
A 2019 investigation by the French government into the cause of Hammarskjold’s death makes no reference to link the OAS to the 1961 crash of the Albertina plane carrying the secretary-general and others.
Was the original letter intercepted before it reached New York City and Hammarskjold himself?…
Did the UN ever see it?…
Six weeks after the approximate date on the letter, Hammarskjold was dead.”
By 2022, primary withholders of information continued to be the UK, USA and South Africa. Sweden had also withheld information yet coordinated UN members into voting for the Judge’s investigation to continue.
Judge Othman’s 2022 report was mostly (and notably) the result of independent investigators. He stated that:
“From the totality of the information at hand, it appears plausible that an external attack or threat may have been a cause of the crash, whether by way of a direct attack … or by distracting the pilots at the critical stage of preparing to land.”
The report was labelled as ‘Document N2244798’. I couldn’t find it on the UN website but the Judge’s frustration is summarised on the excellent Hammarskjold Inquiry website:
“His fourth report provides a wealth of new detail which appears to challenge the claims of these three Member States that they no longer possess material of use to the investigation.
Judge Othman records that he brought to the attention of the UK the Zimbabwean Independent Appointee’s observation that, prior to Zimbabwe’s independence, Rhodesian authorities had ‘meticulously removed almost every record or archive associated with the Dag Hammarskjöld Crash’. With MI5, MI6 and GCHQ active in the Congo at the time, how might there be now no records - and why?
The Judge details in paragraphs 396-406 his efforts to elicit meaningful cooperation from the UK but readers are left in no doubt that this has been withheld. At the time of submitting his report, further replies to his questions are awaited.
The response of the US is similarly challenged. By way of example, the Judge writes in paragraph 415, CIA documents (provided by individual researchers) show the US link to and/or awareness of the supply of weapons, aircraft and personnel to Katanga, including Fouga and Dornier aircraft. Other documents analysed in the 2019 report show that CIA operatives sought to retain agents for an “execution squad” in the Congo and had arranged a CIA plane and related operations there. From added information in 2022, links between key mercenary personnel in Katanga and CIA appear to be established. Throughout the Judge’s enquiries, the US has maintained a friendly but uncooperative stance.
For South Africa, the Judge refers in paragraph 395 to Operation Celeste, the clandestine apparent plot to plant a bomb on Hammarskjöld’s plane. He states that it remains a priority for South Africa to identify immigration, flight, police and other official records for named persons of interest in September 1961. Again, further responses are awaited from South Africa which has been slow to respond from the start of his enquiries, a puzzle to observers for surely nobody remains in post once loyal to the policies of the apartheid era.” [emphasis my own]
In 2023, a new report included observations made by Joseph Majerle III, an airplane mechanic and pilot. He pointed out the incongruity of the aircraft being discovered in a landing configuration when the undercarriage was locked down, flaps were partially extended, most of the propellers in reverse thrust position, and the aircraft far from the landing strip i.e. a disaster leading to an attempted crash landing.
On March 2 2024, The Guardian published ‘UK and US accused of obstructing inquiry into 1961 death of UN chief’.
“A conference in London heard an update from the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, Stephen Mathias, on progress in the inquiry, which is seeking archive documentation from member states…
‘While Belgium, Sweden and Zimbabwe demonstrated serious efforts, the US and UK responses were wholly inadequate and showed contempt for the UN inquiry,’ said the organisers of Thursday’s conference, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and the Westminster United Nations Association.
Susan Williams, a researcher whose 2011 book ‘Who Killed Hammarskjöld’ contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry, said the US and UK were ‘global outliers’.
QUESTION
Is fair investigation possible?
The UN has been the geopolitical toy of the West. When the UN General-Secretary tried to do his advertised job, and not their job, he got killed.
Judge Mohamed Othman is now age 72.
The UK and US have repeatedly failed to support resolutions for investigation renewal.
Does anyone truly care now that the defence of delay has been so effective? There’s probably no one alive to punish, and the best one could hope for is another shade of grey on the black wall of empire.
Will facts be purposely devolved into another conspiracy theory becoming a Hollywood movie that turns fact into fiction entertainment?
COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD
The initial jumpiness and offbeatness of ‘Cold Case Hammarskjöld’ may dissuade some viewers but if they continue watching they’re guaranteed to become as absorbed.
It’s one downfall is that it allows the perception that it uncovered much itself. Reality is that investigator Göran Bjorkdahl and author Susan Williams were the instigators of the later United Nations investigations (the book can be bought from Jacana).
The documentary remains a highlight, and will linger long and disturbingly in the minds of South Africans whose country should stop hiding its past lest its future become as tainted.
Watch on YouTube or BitChute, or via most streaming platforms e.g. Apple, Amazon, BBC.
‘The Mole: Undercover in North Korea’ is another insanely insightful Mads Brügger documentary you should see.
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Further reading:
Susan Williams’ latest book is ‘White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa’
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Although this could mostly be read as a standalone, it was Part 6 of the Spiderweb series.
Spiderweb #1: Is South Africa a threat to the USA? "South Africa has been building ties to countries that undermine America’s national security and threaten our way of life," says Congressman John James.
Spiderweb #2: The Fake Munich Security Conference 2024 - The elite guest list at the USA's military version of Davos included Alexander Soros, Anthony Blinken and South Africa's Emma Louise Powell.
Spiderweb #3: Who controls South Africa? (part 1) - A mystery about George Soros, Martin Moshal , Michiel Le Roux, Nathan Kirsh, Rob Hersov, the Oppenheimers, The Brenthurst Foundation, and the Democratic Alliance.
Spiderweb #4: Who controls South Africa? (interval) - A note about your shares and me being censored before the series continues...
Spiderweb #5: Who controls South Africa? (part 2) - The influence of Redi Tlhabi, Chris Maroleng, sponsored media, think tanks, and NGOs on truth, elections and the economy of South Africa.
Spiderweb #6: Who Controls South Africa (part 3) - Cold Case Apartheid & the Blood of the U.N. - A crazy crime story that travels from Europe to South Africa - assassinations, the attempted extermination of black South Africans, and the theft of billions by the outgoing Apartheid government.
Excellent work.
Here in my Dutch neck of the woods I run into visiting Afrikaners from time to time and many of them seem quite well versed about the topics you broach here. They all love South Africa, but all too often tell me they want to get out before the shit really hits the fan.
It makes me wonder if South Africa ever really had a change. The European settlers were treated horribly by the Dutch and the VOC, treated as second class citizens by the British and treated with outright disdain by the Collective West once they became independent.
Some of this disdain continues to this day.
My Netherlands for example has made it ridiculously difficult for Afrikaners to migrate 'back home'. I know those who tried and most of them failed for a myriad of bizarre bureaucratic reasons. I am still not quite sure why that is, but I am quite sure that this is still (un-) official Dutch policy.
Great reporting here. If nothing else this should shed light on the fact that this sort of interference is not a recent phenomenon.