In May 2001, the United Nations special committee on decolonization met in Cuba to discuss the future of small island non-self-governing territories. American Samoa was included in the group of territories the United Nations (UN) wished to see made independent form their administrators. The governor of American Samoa, Tauese Sunia, and the representative from American Samoa to the United States Congress, Eni Faleomavaega, adamantly opposed the inclusion of the island group on the UN's list of colonies. At the conference, Governor Sunia sought the delisting of American Samoa from the UN's list and explained that the people of the Territory take exception to the term colony that the UN so freely used during its Cuban conference.