DACk-reply to follow 2/H Krben. Dept. to reply
The Hon. Dr. David
The Foreign Office
Whitehall.
Dear Dr. Owen:
MERCHANTS
HRC 3807.
E
OwenCEIVED IN ANY NO. 57
- 8 DEC 1977
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
No
REGIS Action T
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Dulcie Cary-Barnard Cadogan Gardene
London,
DEC. 5
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH
7-6 DEC 1977
OCATIONS SECTION
See
OFFICE
I am protesting your failure to grant a reprieve to the men executed in Bermuda last Friday. That Whitehall should have been "surprised" (Guardian, Dec. 5 1977) by local reaction is amazing to anyone with even a tittle of intelligence. Where do you get your information? From the mereannats on Front Street? Having had a close association with and knowledge of Bermuda for twenty years, I understand only too well and too sadly the political ramifications of the entire situation.
No one condones murder, but I would remind you that no hanging has been carried out in Britain since the middle sixties and, of course,
not in Bermuda since the middle forties. I have always thought that
the abolition of capital punishment in this country was the gradual
result of an evolution of human and political values since the 19th century, and not the product of mere political strategy. This funda- mental reform was based on the premise that society at large did not have the right to commit the very same crime for which it was punishing the individual criminal.
I was in Bermuda at the time of the murder of Lord Sharples. During
that period, the Governorship in some of its social manifestations appeared just as abnormal as certain sections of the protest movement which was prevalent then. These observations touch the mere surface of the island's reality, as I'm sure you must be aware.
I am making a dual protest: first, against the inhumanity of hanging; secondly, against the lack of comprehension of the British Government concerning its last colony.
Yours Sincerely,
372 ulce Cary - Barward
(Mrs.) Dulcie Cary-Barnard
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