Thursday, April 19, 2007

Words from MySpace - Everything's connected U just don't always know how

Dag Hammarskjöld was born 1905 to a loving mother and a strict father. 3 years later King Leopold II of Belgium declared Congo on of it's colonies.

During the years to come the Congolese people were heavily exploited by the Belgians.


While Dag Hammarskjöld in Sweden blossomed - gaining a good career in politics, walking in his fathers footsteps.


In April of 1953 to his own surprise he got elected as the UN secretary general and during the years to come he helped shape UN by establishing the first UN Emergency Force. He also tried to personally soothe conflicts in
Israel, China, etc. Until the Congo crisis...

In 1960 Congo finally gained it's own freedom from Belgium. Sadly enough the Belgian rule had managed to keep the native Africans away from studies as best they could - in 1960 only 17 black people had a university degree. Needless to say Congo went into a state of chaos and only a couple of weeks afterwards Katanga the rich part of Congo wanted it's own independence, powered by western-white influences wanting to protect their economical interests.

Since this was the 60's soon Congo became playground for the cold war. Leading up to Soviet accusing the UN for not being firm enough and the UN to send their Emergency Force to Congo, worsening the crisis. Dag Hammarskjöld decided to take matters into his own hands by going to Congo to negotiate himself.

On September 18th 1961 the plane taking him to Katanga crashed, he died and 4 years later Congo got a new ruler ship, stabilising the situation under the dictatorship of Joseph Mobutu.

And that's one way of connecting Belgian King Leopold II's actions to Dag Hammarskjölds destiny.

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