By Walter Wright Advertiser Staff Writer
HONOLULU, Hawai‘i (January 5, 2000 – Honolulu Advertiser)---Samoa’s prime minister said here yesterday that a merger of his country with neighboring American Samoa is not likely in his lifetime.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, 56, said that while the two Samoas have good relations and some in each country hope for unification some day, political and economic differences make that very unlikely "as yet."
Samoa, an independent country with a parliamentary system of government, and American Samoa, a U.S. territory, lie about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawai‘i.
The Samoan archipelago was divided up by Germany and the United States around the turn of the last century. New Zealand occupied Western Samoa during World War I and ruled it until the country, now simply called Samoa, gained independence in 1962.
American (Eastern) Samoa, with a population of about 60,000 (about one-third that of Samoa) may...