Final Word from Friday, March 28, 2003
Twice during recent radio interviews, Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda spoke of the need for reforming the UN U.N. and mentioned Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the UN's earliest architects and martyrs. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was an advocate of UN reform but died in a plane crash in 1961. Svoboda said that in his view, Hammarskjöld was assassinated by the Soviets. This conspiracy theory has never been proven or even officially investigated by the UN. Svoboda's remarks were apparently meant to show that Russia (which, along with France, had threatened to veto using force in Iraq) opposes UN reform. Svoboda then repeated the argument from Washington that the UN Security Council's veto structure is unacceptable. It's noteworthy that Svoboda concurs so much with U.S. policy that he's willing to invoke a conspiracy theory to make his point.