DIRECTOR of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs Larry Birns yesterday hit back over Premier Alex Scott's attack on the credibility of the group by branding his comments on COHA's latest report on Bermuda and Independence as "baseless and defamatory".

He challenged the Premier to name the "reputable Washington research organisation" which reported that he and his organisation were "an extremely questionable source".

Speaking to the Mid-Ocean News, Dr. Birns sounded baffled by the vehemence of the attacks on his reputation, and wondered at the Premier's motives for doing so.

"I made a serious commitment to review the materials we used, and we did," explained Dr. Birns. "We have been working on this latest memorandum, slowly and episodically, for many weeks, and we reviewed it carefully, and read many hundreds of pages from a wide range of sources. We felt secure enough to speak constructively about the subject.

"This was meant to be a constructive contribution, and I am sorry that the Premier has been so cavalierly dismissive of our views, and accused us of being manipulative. Throughout the Caribbean, by comparison, we are treated like heroes, for the various positions we have taken, many of them anti-American; for example, defending their right to gain access for their produce to Europe on a preferential basis, and we have been very protective of the Caribbean islands in terms of US vengeance for sitting on their hands over Iraq. So, for the Premier to say that we try to manipulate the media is just bizarre."

Dr. Birns described extensive involvement with major media organisations world-wide in just the last few days, and said that their interest in the views of COHA suggested that they did not share the Premier's jaundiced views.

"In just the last week, I did a BBC Newshour broadcast, a separate interview with the Caribbean service of the BBC, an interview here by the UK's Times and Independent, and was called by CBS's 60 Minutes to discuss the possibility of appearing on a programme about Venezuela.

"Then I am going on a national US programme called To The Point followed by Canadian television. If you go to Google, you'll find that COHA has 68,000 sites of media appearances of various sorts.

"The reason why people here at COHA sacrifice their time, and work tremendously long hours is because they are committed to hemispheric issues and feel they can play a constructive role. It is my job to teach them not to be cynical, and to do things in a fair-minded way. In doing this piece on Bermuda, we looked at data from all sides." Asked which Washington research organisation the Premier could have been referring to, Dr. Birns said he had no idea, but that any suggestion of forgery was outrageous.

"There have been two instances of plagiarism, not forgery, by interns in the history of COHA, one just a few days ago when a woman copied something on Guatemala, and I fired her on the spot when we discovered it.

"The other was on Argentina about 18 years ago, and we fired him on the spot, too. Of course, plagiarism affects even the New York Times and the Washington Post.

"I have never heard of this Steven Powell to whom the Premier referred, and I would like the Premier to name the organisation which made such a claim of 'manipulation' and so on. Either it's an invention, or it's a very peculiar organisation.

"Our intern was a highly-regarded 22-year-old student, not an 18 year old, and I did say to Stuart Hayward that if we had done the first memo again, I would have striven to make it more balanced, more fair-minded.

"But one of my advantages is that I don't know any Bermudians, and I'm not sullied by personal associations or preferences, so it's ridiculous of the Premier to think that I have some vendetta, when I have no reason to do so.

"If he is an adversary, he is not an honourable adversary, because the remarks are irrelevant and inventions, and defamatory and baseless."