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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
13 January 1978
63
Stephen Bubb Esq Secretary
Kensington Labour Party
254 Westbourne Park Road Kensington
London W11
Dear in Buri
нка 3861
RECEIVED PROTRY NO. 51 16 JAN 1978
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
PA
No J.J
行
REGISTRY Action Taken
EL
David Owen has asked me to thank you for your letter of
3 January about the recent executions in Bermuda.
To take your questions one by one, you ask:
(a) Why did the Foreign Secretary not prevent the
executions as he has the power to do?
Under the policy which has been followed by successive British Governments, the Foreign Secretary does not advise The Queen to intervene in capital cases in the Dependent Territories, except in the very rare event that a miscarriage of justice might other- wise take place. In nearly all of our remaining Dependent Territories a large degree of internal self-government has been devolved upon the locally elected representatives. It may be that they sometimes make decisions about their own affairs with which we do not agree. But, since those decisions are made by properly constituted, democratically elected local bodies we cannot properly intervene unless the decisions affected those few areas in which we have reserved powers. We can, and in this case we certainly did, let them know what we feel about such matters. But the ultimate decision must be with them, and in this case it was very hard to ignore the fact that as recently as 1975 the Bermuda legislature, which is elected by universal adult suffrage, rejected by 25 votes to 9, in a free vote, a private member's motion to abolish the death penalty.
(b) Why were British troops used to help a white supremicist
régime?
Troops were despatched to Bermuda at the request of the Governor
The Government of who is responsible for internal security.
Bermuda is democratically elected by the entire adult population, about two-thirds of which is black.
(c) Before troops were used was a limit set either to the period they could be deployed or the extent that they could be reinforced?
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