To this day we consider our membership a cornerstone of our national sovereignty.

More to the point, this claim is in contravention of our status as a Member State of the United Nations, of our sovereignty and of our territorial integrity.

The Canadian government has not always been kind to the Inuit people, and during the 1950s, to establish our sovereignty, we forced them into settlements.

There were some successes last year, the most important being that our foreign debt, which restricts our economic sovereignty, is close to being paid off.

The question of nominating a new member State is, according to the provision of the Armistice Agreement, a question that belongs to our sovereign right and is a question in which nobody can intervene.

Our sovereignty, our independence and the socialism that we freely chose will never be bargaining chips at any negotiating table, nor will we ever demand concessions of such a nature from any country.

We shall therefore for ever remain wedded to multilateral institutions like the Caribbean Community, the Organization of East Caribbean States, the Organization of American States, the Commonwealth and this body the United Nations which, together, strengthen our sovereignty.

This is a fate we, the small peoples, do not wish for our world Organization in which we have placed all our hopes for the protection of our sovereignty and independence and for preventing the powerful from preying on us while using the United Nations as a cover for their excesses.

But I express again the full readiness of the Government of His Excellency Mr. Said Mohamed Djohar and the Comorian people to give the highest priority to dialogue and concerted action to resolve this regrettable dispute which we have had with France since we attained our sovereignty.

Because of the capacity of drug traffickers for offence, transit operations also undermine border security, the integrity of foreign trade, the stability of the financial system, the civic and moral integrity of our officials and citizens and our public health, as well as national sovereignty in its fullest context.

In India, for instance, we grapple with the problems of development for 900 million people in the north west and in the north east we face brutal terrorist movements, often supported from abroad, which have killed thousands of innocents, made refugees of hundreds of thousands within India, and threatened our sovereignty and territorial integrity.