American Samoa, a tiny remnant of old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy in the Pacific, is permitted to send a single member to the House of Representatives in Washington. He is not allowed to vote on the floor of the House - American Samoans are US nationals but not citizens - but thanks to an obscure procedural anomaly he can vote in committee. So it was that on 4 March Samoan Representative Eni Faleomavaega came to cast the deciding vote that passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs resolution recognising the Armenian genocide.

LRB 8 April 2010 | PDF Download