“’Something to live for, great enough to die for’ – UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld Revisited” was the theme of a panel organised by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation at the Annual Meeting of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) in The Hague/Netherlands. The Special Lunch Panel was held on 13 June at The Hague Institute for Global Justice and attracted and audience of over 60 people.
Moderated by Director Emeritus and Senior Advisor Henning Melber, presenters were Susan Williams, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London (author of ‘Who Killed Hammarskjöld?’), Prof. Manuel Fröhlich of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena (author of ‘Political Ethics and the United Nations: Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General’), Monica Bouman, independent researcher (author of ‘Dag Hammarskjöld – Citizen of the World’) and Prof. Ramesh Thakur from the Australian National University in Canberra (editor of ‘Global Governance’).
Susan Williams summarised parts of her new book, soon published on the geo-strategic interests regarding the uranium in Katanga; Manuel Fröhlich presented the efforts of George Ivan Smith to investigate the circumstances of the plane crash in which Hammarskjöld and 15 others were killed upon approaching Ndola; Monica Bouman revisited the role of Hammarskjöld with regard to the non-aligned movement since Bandung; and Ramesh Thakur presented a perspective on the procedure regarding the appointment of the next Secretary-General.