As Dirk mentioned Mad Mike Hoare:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Mike_Hoare
seemingly a South African mercenary aiding Tshombé in Katanga 1961
and he helped also with Tshombé to counter the Simba revolt in 1964 and then already with the help of the Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simba_rebellion

And about the dead of Dag Hammarskjöld and the involvement of Jan Van Risseghem with a Fuga Magister
I mentioned two articles for the Dutch speaking Dirk
https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/weduwe-piloot-spreekt-voor-het-eerst-over-crash-vn-baas-in-1961-mijn-jan-heeft-het-niet-gedaan~b6f083d0/?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.
https://www.hln.be/de-krant/-belgische-piloot-bekende-moord-op-vn-secretaris~a2d3ab80/
In the meantime I found an English language article that don't say all of the Dutch content articles
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/12/former-raf-pilot-shot-down-un-chief-dag-hammarskjold-1961-plane

But yesterday I looked more to the role of the CIA in the new Congo republic, as together with the Portuguese in the neighbouring Angola.
They even tried to poison Lumumba, but in the meantime he was murdered in Katanga
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483553?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
The wiki about the CIA in Congo is an interesting revue, but in my opinion try to emphasize that Lumumba wanted to be neutral and it was only by the actions of the CIA that he was driven in the hands of the Soviets. At least I understand it that way. I think there is much more research needed than mentioned in the Wiki. And there seems to be also left wing and right wing "interpretations". So it is not easy to find the reality, if that can ever found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
In any case it was a part of the Cold War.

As for Angola:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front_of_Angola
 
Zambia
But I ask Dirk if Kenneth Kaunda hadn't the best approach to the Americans in the Cold War? I remember that he once visited our factory and as there was a huge transaction of our goods were possible, we had to honour him as much as we could. I remember having had to stay at a gate to make that when the presidential cortege passed all would run smootly. And so I saw Kaunda once in face. In the briefing about the visit we learned that he wrote also poems.
https://aaregistry.org/story/zambia-gains-independence/
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/kenneth-kaunda-the-united-states-and-southern-africa-9781474267632/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682740701284132

I hope I will receive some input from Dirk, especially about Northern Rhodesia.

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul,

 there is not that much to say about Kenneth Kaunda. He had great ideas and was the right man to lead Zambia but also had enemies.

Yes, he was instrumental in bringing independence to Northern Rhodesia but it was much a much more peaceful build up compared to the Southern Rhodesia independence movement headed by Robert Mugabe /Joshua Nkomo what turned out to be a very brutal war.
Much can be said about that also.

Will do some thinking and then come back to this topic hoping of course that I will not be labelled as a racist.
It always amazes me how people who have never ever been to Africa, and more than likely could not even point out on a blind map the location of the African continent, are very quick to mention the word racism.

Anyway enough said before I get banned from the board.

And Paul, mentioning "Mad Mike Hoare .

Did you know that he is still alive , he turned 100 last March and actually lives in Ireland.




regards

Dirk

Dirk, 

just a quick reply because I am doing research for Nielsen about the Merovingians
Thanks for the reply and I recall the set backs to you from the BBC for in my opinion only saying your opinion about what happened. If you read the Dutch articles I mentioned...was it in De Soete house in Belgium that they found two bones of fingers of Lumumba and those Katangese Gendarmes hacked him in pieces and tried to let him disappear in acid...it was quite another world there in Africa...I remember some episodes of Pakenham's Scramble for Africa about the later Belgian Congo...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scramble-Africa-Thomas-Pakenham/dp/0349104492
 
Looking forward to your later replies in this matter, 

with kind regards from Paul.

Paul,

with further ref to the deathly air crash 1961   of Dag Hammerskjold have a read through another story which is attached hereto and was released recently.

Was a U.N. Secretary-General Assassinated to Cover Up a Sinister Plot to Spread AIDS Across Africa?
On Sept. 18, 1961, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld died when his plane crashed in Ndola, Rhodesia. 


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/spotlight/was-a-un-secretary-general-assassinated-to-cover-up-a-sinister-plot-to-spread-aids-across-africa/ar-AAFTe3b?ocid=spartandhp

Dirk

A "click-bait" headline, which refers to a theory rightly dismissed as daft even in the very article to which it refers, a review of Mads Brügger's latest excursion into documentary making based on rather dubious premise but executed in a manner likely to generate quite a lot of publicity due to the controversy that can be manufactured around both premise and execution. Brügger is a Danish director whose previous professional incarnation was as a rather sensationalist TV "journalist", also with a rather chequered reputation regarding his ability to distinguish between substantial and idle speculation, and rarely if ever actually going to the trouble of researching and identifying his subject beyond using impersonation and other subterfuges to "prove" a theory through entrapment of individuals which might suggest a theory as valid, along with anecdotal accounts and spurious "facts" elicited from often very unreliable witnesses. You seem to have a knack for bringing such charlatans to our attention, Dirk.

Here in Norway Brügger's treatment of the Hammarskjold incident received quite a lot of attention, and was particularly interesting to those journalists and authors who, in the past, have argued for the very real possibility that the UN Secretary General was the specific target of an assassination that had been orchestrated with the collusion of certain powers-that-be and some rather better attested involvement from mercenaries. However the consensus here was that Brügger's film adds nothing of consequence to what is already known, and in fact the inclusion of much that is so blatantly conjecture and fantasy of the highest order has even led to some commentators wondering if Brügger himself isn't maybe part of a conspiracy to prematurely end any hope of a proper official investigation by reducing such efforts to farce. Such theories aside however it is safe to say that the general consensus was simply that it is a crap film as documentaries go, and not worth wasting one's time watching.

Brügger uses his twitter page to shamelessly promote his work, and his hundreds of references to be found there linking to reviews, both good and bad, probably tell you as much about Brügger's priorities when it comes to accurate journalism versus popularity of his product as you'd ever need to know. Lately he's been concentrating on rather lower hanging fruit, namely an "exposé" about North Korea, which apparently he has deduced is a rather rotten state indeed. Can't see the Pulitizer committee being too excited about this one either.

I'd heard that (conspiracy) theory some while ago, nordmann.  With the proliferation of the internet there seems to be somebody saying there was something sinister about the deaths of many well-known people.  Though I see you have mentioned that DH's death had previously been discussed by perhaps more serious journalists.  I won't mention the name of the person (as I don't want to bring any people with 'unusual' ideas to this site) but there are already (as you likely know) speculative theories abounding about the recent death of a somewhat (allegedly) dodgy financier.

It's so hard to know whether a person is a charlatan or a bona fide investigator* these days unless it is a matter one knows something about.  You know about what goes on in Norway being based there but it's harder for us who are further away from that country to sift the wheat from the chaf regarding such information.

* Well I'll add a rider that if someone starts attesting that the earth is flat I will believe them to either be a charlatan or a very much mistaken person.

Dirk,

while you mentioned in this thread Mad Mike, whose name I never heard...and thanks to you...

Dangerous life, but nevertheless became more than 100 years old...
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/03/world/mad-mike-famous-mercenary-death-scli-intl-gbr/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Mike_Hoare

Just an action film concerning him, but with great names as Burton
"Wild geese"
The "normal stuff" of action war films and perhaps will nordmann say that we haven't to glorify...by posting this film?...
But perhaps for you and others it is rather an entertaining action film...there were times that I...





 Paul.

Re the above mentioned Mad Mike Hoare, he passed away earlier this month - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2020/02/02/mad-mike-hoare-mercenary-leader-obituary/

He was actually not that mad as what people think/say.

He was quite intelligent and had the knack of convincing people listening to him.

Any way another legend gone and I am sure that there are not many of his Congo mercenaries left.
It is all now some 60 years ago.


Dirk

I mentioned earlier in this thread the role of the CIA in the new Congo Republic:
"But yesterday I looked more to the role of the CIA in the new Congo republic, as together with the Portuguese in the neighbouring Angola.
They even tried to poison Lumumba, but in the meantime he was murdered in Katanga
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483553?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
The wiki about the CIA in Congo is an interesting revue, but in my opinion try to emphasize that Lumumba wanted to be neutral and it was only by the actions of the CIA that he was driven in the hands of the Soviets. At least I understand it that way. I think there is much more research needed than mentioned in the Wiki. And there seems to be also left wing and right wing "interpretations". So it is not easy to find the reality, if that can ever found.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
In any case it was a part of the Cold War."

Especially for Dirk Marinus, who was there in the area of Rhodesia in the time after WWII...
I mentioned the CIA but there was already a predecessor of the CIA during WWII:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services
We mentioned it during our thread about "Gladio"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

And this morning it all came to mind again when I read this article on BBC World
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200803-the-forgotten-mine-that-built-the-atomic-bomb
The author seems to be from Spain
https://es.linkedin.com/in/frank-swain-60a67192
https://www.sciencefactory.co.uk/frank-swain

And the involvement of the OSS in the Katanga came in relationship with the "Union minière du Haut-Katanga" (the term that we learned at school in the Fifties)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-radioactive-cut-that-will-not-stay-closed/
https://www.newsweek.com/congolese-uranium-nazi-germany-and-race-build-bomb-471167

And about "L'Union Minière"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkolobwe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Sengier

And yes thanks to the interest of the British (the US was still neutral) in the Congo it is nearly sure that the Belgian government went reluctantly to Britain in 1940. Or perhaps thanks to the Minister of Colonies "de Vleeschauwer"or the threat of a Belgian government in exile by Marcel-Henri Jaspar, a Belgian de Gaulle in London... 

I made an in depth study about it on the French fora (perhaps of interest for MM and his Belgian friends)
https://www.39-45.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=51191

Paul.

On top of what I yesterday said about the role of the Congo in the Cold War and the role of the CIA (and the Belgian state) in the independent former Belgian Congo and the nowadays troubles about statues related to colonialism, we "celebrate" this year the 60 years independence...
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2020/06/28/brussels-marks-60-years-of-congolese-independence/
and on this occasion there is a 6 parts documentary that I watch on the Belgian TV
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnu/a-z/kinderen-van-de-kolonie/1/kinderen-van-de-kolonie-s1a1/
et eventuellement pour MM sur RTBF
https://www.rtbf.be/info/article/detail_les-enfants-de-la-colonisation-un-autre-regard-sur-notre-heritage-colonial-joyce-azar?id=10078375

By all that "my" time in the Belgian industry came to mind, the time of "Mobutu" and the jokes about him...
But jokes aside, if you hear now the testimonies about the dictator it was no joke at all...
In one of the parts described above, one before living in the Zaire of Mobutu, told with regret that probably for joking about Mobutu in the classroom (the teachers too were perhaps informants of the "regime") is father was taken from house and after some weeks of detention came back, hiding always one of his hands and not saying anything about the detention. On a certain moment his son had seen that there were some fingers missing...

But yes in that time the "Cold War" against Communism...and Mobutu...
It says less than the Dutch language wiki, but nevertheless you have a survey about the man...
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko

And the CIA
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP83S00855R000100080001-6.pdf

Paul.

Dirk, 

while I see you are on board. What is your take on Mobutu or the one from the people around you in Rhodesia when it happened. As I see it Mobutu's time in the beginning was a stabilizing one perhaps helped by milliards (billions) of the West, but the second time after the Zairisation became more and more a bloody dictatorship. (Or was that not your time in Africa, Dirk?)
And yes after the end of the Cold War (or was there no end in the Cold War?) in 1989 it was finished for him.

Paul.