Bringing Light into the Heart of Darkness? A study of United Nation Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s role as a mediator during the Congo crisis 1960-1961 Author: Mats Larsson Supervisor: Aryo Makko Examiners: Karin Dirke & Elisabeth Elgán Master Thesis Department of History Stockholm University Autumn 2017 Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.1.1 Dag Hammarskjöld ................................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 United Nations and peacekeeping ............................................................................. 6 1.1.3 Congo, decolonisation and the Congo crisis ............................................................. 6 1.2 Prior Research .................................................................................................................. 7 1.2.1 Traditional historiographical narratives – The (Global) Cold War and postcolonial critique ................................................................................................................................ 8 1.2.2 Idealizing Hammarskjöld ........................................................................................ 10 1.2.3 The diplomacy of Dag Hammarskjöld .................................................................... 11 1.3 Research aim and research questions ............................................................................. 14 1.4 Primary sources .............................................................................................................. 15 1.5 Theory - Intermediary Mediation ................................................................................... 16 1.6 Method ........................................................................................................................... 18 1.6.1 Levels of analysis .................................................................................................... 20 1.6.2 Princen’s analytical concepts .................................................................................. 21 1.7 Outline of study & selection of diplomatic events ......................................................... 23 1.8 Chronology of the Congo Crisis ..................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2. Dag Hammarskjöld, Congo and Secretariat diplomacy ......................................... 27 2.1 Early attempts at reconciliation and the Conciliation Commission: September 1960 – March 1961 .......................................................................................................................... 29 2.1.1 The political situation and reconciliation attempts following coups in September 1960 .................................................................................................................................. 29 2.1.2 The Credential Vote and its implications for reconciliation – November 1960 ..... 35 2.1.3 The Conciliation Commission’s report – January - March 1961 ............................ 38 2.1.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 41 2.2 Intra-state conferences and solutions and the role of the UN: March – April 1961....... 42 1 2.2.1 Hammarskjöld attempts to discourage an intrastate solution excluding the UN – Tananarive Conference .................................................................................................... 43 2.2.2 Hammarskjöld’s threat and the financial aspects of ONUC ................................... 48 2.2.3 Hammarskjöld attempts to encourage an intrastate solution including the UN – Coquilhatville Conference ................................................................................................ 53 2.2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 55 2.3 The convening of parliament at Lovanium: June – August 1961 .................................. 56 2.3.1 The role of the UN prior to parliament ................................................................... 57 2.3.2 Interfering in domestic affairs or classic mediation at parliament? ........................ 61 2.3.3 Advisory Committee received no insights of UN mediation .................................. 66 2.3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 3. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 73 3.1 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 73 3.2 The diplomacy of Dag Hammarskjöld ........................................................................... 73 3.3 Theoretical considerations .............................................................................................. 75 3.4 A re-evaluation of Dag Hammarskjöld and UN secretariat diplomacy ......................... 76 3.5 Sammanfattning ............................................................................................................. 78 Chapter 4. Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 81 4.1 Primary sources .............................................................................................................. 81 4.2 Secondary sources .......................................................................................................... 82 4.2.1 Literature ................................................................................................................. 82 4.2.2 Internet .................................................................................................................... 87 2 Abstrakt Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera Dag Hammarskjölds medlande och diplomatiska agerande under Kongokrisen 1960-1961. Uppsatsen är grundad i Thomas Princens teori om intermediärt medlande med taktiker och tekniker som metodologiska verktyg. Studiens resultat visar att Hammarskjöld aktivt medlade med en tydlig preferens för Léopoldville faktionen samt att han undvek att tydligt tillgodose FN:s rådgivande kommitté med information om en diplomatisk policy som han själv skapade. Denna bild skiljer sig från den tidigare forskningen som främst har idealiserat Hammarskjöld. Hammarskjölds diplomati var även karakteriserat av en ambivalent relation till medlarrollen där han vid tillfällen snarare var en disputant än en medlare. Genom analysen av Hammarskjölds medlande under Kongokrisen har forskningen om generalsekreterarens diplomatiska agerande utökats. 3 Chapter 1. Introduction The Congo crisis could easily have provoked armed conflicts in other parts of Africa, even led to a world war. It was Dag Hammarskjöld and no one else who prevented that. And it is certain that for a suffering people he came to be seen as a model; he brought light into the heart of darkness.1 Sture Linnér 15/10 2007 So stated Sture Linnér regarding Dag Hammarskjöld’s actions during the Congo crisis. Linnér was a UN colleague who was Hammarskjöld’s foremost representative during the peacekeeping mission in Congo from May 1961 until the death of Hammarskjöld in September 1961 in a plane crash outside current day Zambia.2 The former director of the Hammarskjöld Foundation Henning Melber used this quote in his account of Hammarskjöld during the Congo crisis, and is an example of the idealizing discourse surrounding Hammarskjöld.3 A continued interest in Hammarskjöld indicates that the memory of him is still alive in Swedish popular understanding of the UN and the post-war time period. Biographies such as historian Henrik Berggren’s have kept Hammarskjöld positioned as one of the great 20th century great Swedish political figures together with Olof Palme, Hjalmar Branting, Raoul Wallenberg,4 and Per-Albin Hansson.5 Sweden’s self-image after World War II has been as a neutral alternative to the two blocs of the Cold War, as “the good conscience of the world”,6 and in many ways Hammarskjöld has come 1 Sture Linnér & Sverker Åström “UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld. Reflections and personal experiances”, The 2007 Dag Hammarskjöld Lecture, (Uppsala 2008), p. 31. 2 Regarding naming practice, I use the names of people and places as they were on June 30 1960, as that is how they are presented in the source material in order to avoid confusion in case of quotations. It is, however, important to remember that that the names of places like Léopoldville were colonial names that were later changed, Léopoldville to Kinshasa; For the death of Hammarskjöld, see Susan Williams, Who Killed Hammarskjöld? the UN, the Cold War and white supremacy in Africa (London: Hurst & Company, 2011). 3 Henning Melber, ““Dag Hammarskjöld and Africa’s decolonisation” in Carsten Stahn & Henning Melber (eds.), Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency: Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 268. 4 See for example Paul Levine “Over the decades this public adulation has resulted in the construction of a number of myths around Wallenberg, myths