 Newcastle Emlyn Town Council rejects call for support from Newcastle Emlyn SWC
Newcastle Emlyn Town Council at its meeting on March 20th 2003 were read a letter from former Town Clerk Harry Rogers of the Newcastle Emlyn "Stop the War Coalition" requesting their support.
The gist of the handwritten letter was as follows:-
Dear Councillors,
I write with some anger and sadness, on behalf of Newcastle Emlyn Stop The War Coalition to ask for your support for our activities in trying to bring about the end of war in Iraq. We invite one or two of you to join our peaceful demonstration tomorrow against the killing of innocent men women and children in Iraq. We are meeting at the Plaid Cymru office from 9.30 onwards and we will be peacefully demonstrating throughout the day.
Yours sincerely,
Harry Rogers
ps. We are also holding a public meeting tomorrow evening in the Emlyn Arms Hotel at 7.30.
Harry Rogers, who attended the Town Council meeting as a public observer describes the reaction of councillors :
Charles Gurman said "All I can say as mayor of Newcastle Emlyn is NO COMMENT."
The rest of the councillors nodded in agreement, there was no discussion and the Town Clerk proceeded to the next item on the so called 'agenda'.
Harry Rogers commented after the meeting :
"I was absolutely stunned that there was no discussion of the letter whatsoever. I would have expected our local democratic representatives to have said something even if only to say that the Council does not get involved in local campaigns.
"Of course this is a sad reflection of this Council's attitude to a number of local people's concerns on different issues which they as a body consider to be contentious. I shall be writing to them again on this issue and I urge others to do the same. (Letters should be sent to the Town Clerk
"There is something wrong when local people from Newcastle Emlyn who managed to fill three coaches for the anti war demo in London on February 15th are treated in such an offhand and cavalier manner by the lowest tier of Local Government who I believe have a duty that goes with their office to represent all sections of their community whether they agree with them or not!"
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