2,000 Attend Local Model U.N. Event

While Serbs began to withdraw from their positions above the battered Bosnian city of Sarajevo this weekend, nearly 2,000 college students gathered in Boston hotel conference rooms to debate solutions to world problems, including the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.

Harvard National Model United Nations (NMUN) 1994 held its 40-year history, in the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Boston from Thursday to Sunday.

The conference brought together college students from 135 schools and challenged them to negotiate solutions to the world's most pressing problems, from setting the loan policy of the World Bank to reducing the nuclear armaments in North Korea.

"Overall, it went really well," said Jonathan B. Vessey '95, undersecretary general of the general assembly. "It's the biggest conference in the nation, if not in the world Everything went off without a hitch."

The role-playing simulation was run by approximately 130 Harvard undergraduates and attended by 1,900 delegates from other colleges. Each school represented a real country in the United Nations.

The simulation was made as realistic as possible through the use of parliamentary procedure and even a mock emergency security crisis at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The imaginary crisis called on delegates to deal with Indian terrorists from Kashmir holding the Secretary General hostage.

Authentic issues of debate were researched over the summer by several Harvard students who served as directors of each committee and pre- pared informational study guides for thedelegates.

Each set of directors was headed by one of fiveundersecretary generals, who in turn reporteddirectly to Paveljit S. Bindra '94, the secretarygeneral and main organizer of the conference.

"The idea of the program is to educate bothother Harvard undergraduates and other collegestudents around the world on internationalrelations, current international events and thenegotiation process," said Aaron M. Helsinger '95,undersecretary general of special programs. "[Welearn] how nations come to compromise and how theybring their national interests together to come upwith common solution to various internationalproblems."

Helsinger headed seven of the 20 committeesduring the conference, which included the SecurityCouncil, the International Court and theOrganization of American States.

"We sort of do everything on a fast track andmake the compromises that take 15 years to make inthe real United Nations," he said.

Conference delegates attempted to produce asingle comprehensive resolution for each topicconsidered, said Helsinger.

"That's one of the things that distinguish ourconference from other Model United Nations," hesaid. "We restrict delegates to one resolution foreach committee on each topic for the conference,so they are forced to come up with a comprehensiveresolution."

Helsinger said the conference inlcudedrepresentatives from Ghana, Indonesia, the UnitedKingdom and Mexico.

Gillian Martin-Sorenson, undersecretary generaland policy adviser to the real United Nations,gave a keynote speech to the delegates at thestart of the conference

Each set of directors was headed by one of fiveundersecretary generals, who in turn reporteddirectly to Paveljit S. Bindra '94, the secretarygeneral and main organizer of the conference.

"The idea of the program is to educate bothother Harvard undergraduates and other collegestudents around the world on internationalrelations, current international events and thenegotiation process," said Aaron M. Helsinger '95,undersecretary general of special programs. "[Welearn] how nations come to compromise and how theybring their national interests together to come upwith common solution to various internationalproblems."

Helsinger headed seven of the 20 committeesduring the conference, which included the SecurityCouncil, the International Court and theOrganization of American States.

"We sort of do everything on a fast track andmake the compromises that take 15 years to make inthe real United Nations," he said.

Conference delegates attempted to produce asingle comprehensive resolution for each topicconsidered, said Helsinger.

"That's one of the things that distinguish ourconference from other Model United Nations," hesaid. "We restrict delegates to one resolution foreach committee on each topic for the conference,so they are forced to come up with a comprehensiveresolution."

Helsinger said the conference inlcudedrepresentatives from Ghana, Indonesia, the UnitedKingdom and Mexico.

Gillian Martin-Sorenson, undersecretary generaland policy adviser to the real United Nations,gave a keynote speech to the delegates at thestart of the conference