Committee, and I thank its members for listening to me~ In a brief reference to myself, I wish to say that I was born in Buenos Aires. My mother was a first-generation Argentine whose father came to the country to develop an industry at the request of his Scottish brothers. My father was English. I received my primary education in the State schools of that time, subsequently being sent to Great Britain, as was usual for descendants of people of British or·igin. t returned to finish my seoondary education and university studles in Argentina, receiving a doctorate in medicine. This was followed by post-graduate studies at Cleveland and Boston, t.n the United States, and in England. JP/td A/AC.109/PV~l369 23 (Mr. Thomson) I come before you as an independent petitioner particu1arly interested in the settlement of the unfortunate sovereignty dispute over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands; a dispute which Argentina has protested down the years from the earliest history of the issue.• As a member of the British conmunity in Buenos Aires~ I worked actively in the British Hospital, which was founded in 1844, for 40 years, becoming its Director General, for which I was honoured by the award of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). I wish to state that at no moment did I suffer any harassment of any kind by governmental or private institutions, on the contrary, I was always treated with kindness; owing to the respect that the average Argentine feels for a country that has had such close cultural and other ties with his country. Since leaving the hospital~ I have worked in a family business that has been closely connected to British business interests: The British community in Argentina has played an active part in the development of that country, a part that goes back to the eighteenth centuryi at 