Commission to tackle racism.

And they predicted that the controversy would sour the Commission's work -- only days before it officially gets down to business.

Opposition chiefs said -- despite claims from Government Ministers that the PLP was consulted -- only one of the four people they proposed for the 12-strong Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) was accepted.

Shadow Education and Human Affairs Minister, Dr. Ewart Brown blasted: "The Government doesn't appear to have played fair.'' Dr. Brown added: "The Government's idea of consultation is a far cry from what we would have done.'' CURE was launched by Human Affairs Minister, the Hon. Jerome Dill, on Monday.

And he made a point of saying the Opposition had been consulted.

But Dr. Brown said: "I communicated with Mr. Dill on behalf of Opposition Leader Mr. Wade and I never heard from him again.'' And he predicted that the PLP would find it harder to work with the Commission because of the Government's "heavy-handedness and lack of sensitivity'' in setting it up.

Dr. Brown added that if the Government had been serious about consultation, they would have given a proportion of the 12 seats on CURE to the PLP to allocate.

"We are getting off to a terrible start -- I hope the Commission doesn't fail. I don't like to see Commissions or Committees shoot themselves in the foot so early on.'' Last night Mr. Dill said that of the four nominees by the PLP, two had declined to serve on CURE for personal or business reasons.

He added political persuasion played no part in selection, but in Bermuda, political allegiances were generally well-known and several members of the Commission were PLP supporters.