speak for itself on the international stage, Premier Pamela Gordon said yesterday.

For Bermuda will not be able to speak for itself at today's international session of the UK Caribbean Forum, which will discuss hot issues like drugs, money laundering and white collar fraud, because the UK represents the Island on foreign policy matters. Ms Gordon said: "We will have observer status only because we are a Dependent Territory -- that I find extremely frustrating.'' Bermuda objects to `observer status' "Nobody can speak to our issues like we can. I would very definitely like to see a change in that. We are heads of government, whether they like it or not.'' Ms Gordon and her team of Finance Minister Grant Gibbons and the Attorney General Elliott Mottley are in the Bahamian capital together with representatives from a total of 38 countries from the Caribbean and Europe, as well as representatives from the US and Canada, for the first-ever UK-Caribbean Forum.

The conference is being chaired by the new Minister for the Dependent Territories Baroness Symons and UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook will address delegates today.

Bermuda's team were allowed to speak at the first session because it was confined to the Dependent Territories and Caribbean countries.

Yesterday morning's closed session of the conference concentrated on the increasing influence of the European Union and international bodies on measures to combat issues like money laundering and international fraud.

But Ms Gordon said she would be concentrating on plugging the message that if bigger countries catch a cold, smaller ones might die of pneumonia.

She explained: "When it comes down to dealing with smaller countries, you cannot arbitrarily take decisions without considering the effect.

"That's the point we intend to make -- whether the specific topic is relevant or not.'' Dr. Gibbons added that most of the Caribbean countries are dependent on one or two main sectors for their livelihood.

He said: "Some are dependent on bananas, others like Bermuda rely on international business and tourism.'' And he added the UK and EU "had to be sensitive to issues like tax harmonisation in Europe and how that would impact low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda''.

Dr. Gibbons said: "There is an ominous move that these taxes could discriminate against smaller countries, which are much more fragile than larger countries, which are not dependent on just one or two specific sectors.

"Free trade is not necessarily fair trade.''