of a new law to make racist acts criminal offences.

Premier David Saul described the Criminal Code Amendment Act 1995 as "another building block in improving race relations in Bermuda and building mutual respect.'' But Opposition Leader Frederick Wade saw it differently. "This is really only a grain of sand in the cement to build the block,'' he told the House of Assembly.

Debate on the bill -- which makes racial harassment and intimidation a crime subject to fines of up to $5,000 or a year in prison -- was still raging at Press time.

Harassment and intimidation are defined as an assault, a bothersome telephone call or other form of communication, an act of trespassing, or property damage.

Along with strengthening the Human Rights Commission and creating the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality, the new law is part of a three-pronged approach to tackling racism spearheaded by Human Affairs Minister Jerome Dill.

But Opposition MPs predicted the new law would mainly send more blacks to prison.

Quoting from the bill, Shadow Education Minister Jennifer Smith asked what race would be more likely "to cause distress or fear or alarm in another race or persons?'' k Members of which race would be more likely to trespass? she asked. "White people don't go around generally causing fear in blacks,'' she said. "They don't go around generally trespassing on black people's property and causing fear.

"This bill will increase in a very dramatic way a problem we already have, which is the large number of blacks incarcerated, and it will do nothing to decrease the problem we have identified, which is institutional racism.'' Mr. Wade agreed, saying whites no longer used racial insults, but would deny a job promotion or a black's choice of home. And blacks could be charged when they acted out over frustrations at being discriminated against.

Information and Technology Minister Mr. John Barritt said the law would only address the "overt'' racist, but that did not stop other measures from being taken to address institutional racism.

"I think we've agreed on the direction,'' he said of the United Bermuda Party Government and the Progressive Labour Party Opposition. "We may disagree on the steps to be taken and how quickly they are to be taken.'' Former Premier Sir John Swan said Bermuda did not opt for affirmative action and other laws like the United States did in the 1960s because "we tended to feel as though we as a small community that was very intimate and in some ways very benevolent, that we could work out our problems through an inter-action one with the other.'' And affirmative action had not worked in the US, where the races remained polarised.

Now, "we need a marriage of the races, but what I see is a separation of the races,'' Sir John said.

Shadow Tourism Minister David Allen said that after 31 years of UBP Government and more than 13 with Sir John as Premier, the Paget East MP's speech was "an incredible admission of failure.

"He had the power to make the very changes that he is lamenting have not taken place,'' Mr. Allen said of Sir John.

Dr. Saul said Bermuda had made "tremendous'' progress in race relations in the last 30 years, and "I don't know of any place that has better race relations.'' He made a personal pledge that "as the Premier of this Island, with whatever clout goes with this particular position, I am going to both publicly and privately...commit myself to making sure the glass ceiling is basically shattered.''