Mec Vannin – Press Information. Cameron Urged To Formally Apologies For Destruction Of Welsh Community

Mec Vannin

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MEC VANNIN – PRESS INFORMATION. 

CAMERON URGED TO FORMALLY APOLOGISE FOR DESTRUCTION OF WELSH COMMUNITY

The President of Mec Vannin (the Manx Nationalist Party) has written to David Cameron urging him to apologise formally on behalf of the United Kingdom government for the destruction of the Welsh speaking community in the Treweryn Valley in the 1960s.

He has also said reparations should be paid to those who were dispossessed by the creation of a reservoir to supply water to Liverpool fifty years ago this week.

The text of the letter is set out below:

“The United Kingdom Prime Minister
Mr David Cameron MP
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

18th October 2015

Dear Prime Minister,

When the iconic British film documentary maker, Humphrey Jennings, was tasked in World War 2 to make a film that drove home the iniquity of the destruction of the Czechoslovakian village of Lidice he came up with a novel idea. Jennings decided to set his documentary in a Welsh village. His film was set in the village of Cwngiedd and dramatically portrayed the destruction of the community.

Its ironic therefore that a little over twenty years after the documentary was made the British government should allow the destruction of a village and community in Wales.

Of course unlike Lidice no one in the village of Capel Celyn and its surrounding farmsteads was physically hurt as they were evicted from their homes and a Welsh speaking community that had existed for centuries was destroyed to create a reservoir to provide water for Liverpool.

However the physiological harm was profound and the injustice was felt throughout Wales at the time and to this day.

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of that injustice and it will be commemorated in Wales in the same way as earlier anniversaries have been remembered.

There can be no stronger indication of the deep scar this event caused than the reaction ten years ago when Liverpool Council tried to make amends by offering an apology for what happened at the time. While some politicians in Wales accepted the apology others were less forgiving.

Betty Watkin-Hughes, whose family was forcibly moved from Capel Celyn, said at the time: "I think nothing of it, it is just away to say goodbye and sweep it all under the carpet.

"They can keep their apology and start doing what's right for the people who are left."

The United Kingdom government was responsible at the time Capel Celyn was destroyed for good governance in Wales and after fifty years an apology from that government and reparations to those dispossessed or their dependants is long overdue.

Will you and the British government finally do the decent thing and acknowledge this wrong?

Yours sincerely

Bernard Moffatt
President
Mec Vannin

Cc the Secretary of State for Wales Stephen Crabb MP”

The callous manner in which the people of Treweryn were treated has not been forgotten in Wales and it should also be remembered in the other Celtic countries.

END.