THE Bermuda Independence Commission came under fire after it stated in its report, published yesterday, that it had learned of "no instance" where a decision on Independence had been taken by means of a referendum.

Bermuda itself held a referendum on Independence ten years ago and, according to research conducted by London School of Economics political scientist Dr. Gary Sussman, there were 245 sovereignty referenda held between 1791 and 1999.

The BIC statement came in the section of the bulky report on "Test of Public Opinion", which firstly quotes the UK Government on its recommendation of a referendum.

It then states: "The Commission learned that, in many cases, the decision on Independence was determined by means of a general election and, in no instance, did the Commission discover the use of a referendum."

BIC's claim was attacked by Mike Marsh, of Bermudians For Referendum (BFR), the group which has organised a petition, signed by 35 per cent of the electorate.

"Their statement is totally inaccurate and is an example of the BIC's bias towards a general election being the means of testing public opinion, as opposed to a referendum," Mr. Marsh said.

"We simply want to have a referendum on Independence and we have 14,008 signatures, a staggering number.

"Even the exempt companies have indicated that they would like to see a referendum and anyone saying they want to go Independent without a referendum is inviting them to leave.

"What we are about is promoting people power. We believe that every Bermudian should have the right to participate in the decisions being made on Bermuda's future. No one wants politicians to have absolute power, it's more important to have people power."

Pat Ferguson, also of BFR, was shocked by BIC's failure to find examples of countries going Independent by a referendum.

"I think governments sometimes forget that they work for the people, not the other way round," Ms Ferguson said.

"The people pays the Government to work for them and if the people don't want something they shouldn't have a government forcing it upon them.

"And finding out what the will of the people is what a referendum is all about."

Dr. Sussman's research highlighted recent major examples of referenda on the issues of sovereignty as one in Quebec in 1995 (the same year Bermuda held its Independence referendum under then Premier Sir John Swan) and East Timor in 1999.

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all broke away from the Soviet Union in 1989 following Independence referenda and Bosnia became Independent of Yugoslavia following a plebiscite.