Position Paper (Continued)

This was the position paper me and my partner Jose worked on, representing Sudan. This paper have contributed to our success on winning an award that you will later learn about. Well I don't want to spoil it so enjoy the paper as me and Jose act like Sudanese diplomats! The paper is right below:



School: High School for International Business and Finance
Committee: General Assembly 6th Committee (Legal)
Topic: Separatist State Movements
Country: The Republic of Sudan

According to Aesop, “United we stand, divided we fall.” This idea has been the driving force behind many of the separatist state movements that have occurred throughout history. When a group of people sharing a cultural or historical identity feels mistreated by or disconnected to the government in power many times this will foster a separatist state movement in a country.
Although the Republic of Sudan strongly opposes any movements that employ terrorism to achieve its ends, we feel that some are based on the principles of nationalism, an idea having both positive and negative qualities. While it can bring people together to oppose a villain, it can also end up creating more villains. We live in a world where people are racist, ignorant, and biased on individual beliefs. The Republic of Sudan believes that all sides involved in a separatist state movement must be heard out, but ultimately restoring order, peace, and security to a region affected by separatism must be the cornerstone of any resolution.
There have been two attempts for a separatist movement in Sudan. The Second Sudanese Civil War is what is taking place now. The First Sudanese Civil War took place in 1955 because of a British strategy to merge the Northern Arabic-Muslim Sudanese people with the Southern Sudanese people who were Christians and Animists. This was done in an effort to create a war to weaken Sudan and then imperialize Sudan for natural resources.

We want racial equality and wish to promote a safe place for everyone to live. Some countries in the west think our government is facing a small separatist movement between the Arab militia called the Janjaweed and the Sudanese people living in Darfur. Currently Sudan has no leads on crimes because we cannot find any evidence of these crimes. Having found none suggest to us that they are most likely little more than thieves and gangsters. We feel the problems in our rebel Darfur region are being exaggerated for political reasons and that we should be focusing on more pressing issues such as movements where the presence of terrorism is widely known.

In 2007, the U S State Departments aid Sudan had become “a strong partner in the War on Terror.” We have worked tremendously to disrupt fighters from using Sudan as a logistics base and transit point on their way to Iraq. This clearly shows our support for the fight against such separatist state movements occurring today.

The Republic of Sudan believes the best way to end separatist movements is to establish cultural exchange programs within states that face drastic ethnic tensions. This includes providing education to ethnic groups on other ethnic beliefs and cultural ideas so every person has a free and respected space.
The Republic of Sudan also recognizes the need to combat some of the root causes of the problems of why people are in the process of creating new states such as poverty, natural resources, and corruption. We know that some Non Governmental Organizations can help solving resolutions but they have overstepped their boundaries by spying on what is taking place in Sudan and making assumptions without sufficient proof. This is not the way to make peace and promote security in an unstable region.

Therefore, we want to put an end to separatist movements but as long as it does not infringe upon a nation’s sovereignty. The Republic of Sudan believes that separatist state movements need to be addressed in order to conserve mankind and humanity. We hope that all separatists’ movements can come to an end soon so there can be peace, harmony, within states and no wars between other states.

Conference At The United Nations (An Inspirational Story)

At Philadelphia, nobody in my school was recognized enough in order to win a award. I remember we were all upset because we worked so hard to go home empty handed. I made a vow to myself that I was going to do whatever it took in order to win. Saving the world is what should come first before winning but I know I would never work at my full potential if I knew I was not going to gain anything from it. I decided that I needed a new partner who was just as hungry for an award like me if I knew I wanted to win. But what made my task difficult was that I had to represent Sudan(one of the most corrupt countries in the world). The topic we were trying to solve was separatist movements. A separatist movement is when the people try to gain independence from their nation. I could had admitted that Sudan was facing a separatist movement but I didn't because the reason why they are having one is because the Sudanese people are at war with an Arab militia called the janjawid and they believe that the government of Sudan are aiding the Arab militia with weaponry (AKA hosting a genocide which is bad diplomacy). I had doubts because at the opening ceremony the United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon had answered a question related to my topic in front of 3,000 people! But the conference went smoothly because I did not get attacked as I thought I would. In fact, me and my partner (his name is Jose) made it seem like everything was peaceful in Sudan and that there were no problems. And because of that, we won many other countries on our side to help prepare the resolution we created. However, many other resolutions got submitted in before ours so when our country and some other countries who worked on the resolution such as: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Ireland, and Uganda tried to submit a resolution into the chair, it didn't make it to the voting process because the chair stated that "the resolution sounds similar to many others we read". I found that unfair because they did not read the clauses thoroughly and we worked on this resolution on our spare time overnight. At this point I felt that I didn't try hard enough even though I knew that resolution could had possibly saved the world. It upset me the most because I could not keep the resolution because the chair never gave it back. I can still remember what the girls from Angola said because I have kept a note that they had sent me during the conference. They said:


"We think you guys presented some awesome ideas.
Your dedication to writing this resolution is seriously amazing.
We appreciate everything you have done and more. Our resolution
was truly unique and would have been chosen if more time was given to
us."

I still have the note because I found it truly inspiring and the other countries have felt the pain in not getting our resolution submitted in. When the conference was over, the chair decided to give out awards early. I started to make my way for the exit because I knew we didn't win anything. I heard the chair call our country name and I felt like I wanted to shed tears. That was the happiest moment I have ever shared for MUN. Me and Jose showed each other some gratitude by complemented on how we could not had asked for a better team. I was so excited that I never got the chance to thank my partner Jose for being such a great delegate, my global teacher Ms. Pollio and the students of my 09' MUN class for all the support they have given me, and my family for helping me realize that it would eventually take time to succeed in something you really want. So thank you for helping me achieve my inspirational story for MUN.

Access High School

Access High School is a high school that is also in New York City. This was actually the first conference I ever been to (although it was only a simulation). If it was not my global teacher who taught me all I know about MUN then it was attending the simulations here. Coming to these conferences helped me with my motions for caucuses as well as speaking. The simulations held here also gave me the courage to take on representing powerful countries. I remember role playing the United States. The topic was related similar to terrorism and many kids were asking me was the United States torturing terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. I really didn't have a answer for that (I was role playing) but I learned big countries take big risks so if you want to stay out of the fire then make sure you are a small country that has problems that are unrelated to the topic! But being the competitive person I am, I love the challenge that people give to me. My courage at these conferences has made me meet some of the kids who participated from Access High School. I got the chance to see them at the Philadelphia conference and the conference at the United Nations. I am glad I joined MUN because now I have met some friends outside of school who are also trying to change the world.

Resolutions

Today I still face problems with creating resolutions because no matter how hard I try, they do not sound right to me. Resolution writing is one of the key parts of MUN because they come up with many alternatives on how to solve a world issue. Writing a resolution is similar to speaking. You have to know the "MUN language." There are many rules in MUN when it comes to resolution writing. There are the pre-ambulatory clauses (becoming aware of current topic) and the operative clauses (taking action to solve the problem). Currently I have only written one resolution at the conference at the UN but I never got a chance to keep it being that the chair took it and over looked it. I have also written a clause for part of a resolution in Philadelphia. It was my idea but I had the other kids re word it to make it sound better (so it is controversial whether I wrote it or not). But I look forward to writing more resolutions in the future being that my skills have improved over my course of MUN.

Public Speaking/Speeches

Starting out with public speaking was something I thought I was going to be good at during the future conferences I was going to attend. I thought it would be easy being that I excelled with articulating my words in my global class. At the Philadelphia conference everything changed. The other kids had many ideas and the way they speak sounded so much better than how I would hear myself speak. I felt intimidated so throughout most of the conference I did not speak. Instead I would pass notes to other kids to explain my ideas to them. I figured I wouldn't have to speak so then I would not make a fool of myself if a certain statement came out wrong. I learned my lesson from not speaking because many of the other kids took my ideas and re-word my ideas into resolutions of their own. But since the Philadelphia conference I have been studying vocabulary words, writing sample speeches as well as showing confidence within myself. I learned that it is not silly if you say something that might be wrong but it is silly when you say nothing at all. Experience is the best teacher so it does not hurt to receive feedback from your peers.

Position Papers

With every conference you attend, you are required to write a position paper. A position paper is when you write a essay on a topic given by your chair to explain your country's perspective. Position papers can be generally difficult because sometimes it is hard to word ideas on a paper when you do not necessarily agree with them. For example, the last conference I went to was one at the actual United Nations. I was assigned to represent the country on Sudan on the topic of a separatist movement. If you know anything about the country of Sudan, you will know that the country is very corrupt. But being that I'm representing Sudan, I had to make it seem like Sudan weren't held responsible for the actions that were going on such as the genocide for an example. Using diplomacy in my position paper helped lead me and my partner to win an award. I think that position papers are probaly the second hardest thing to do at any conference because you must think of the country you represent and not yourself. Taking MUN for a full semester, I have written three position papers in which all were spectacular in my opinion. The first position paper I written was to help a fellow friend in my class, Marcell Urena, to help her prepare for a conference at Harvard University that I did not attend. I represented the country Benin and the topic was to discuss the Iran-Iraq war. The second paper was the one I wrote for the Philadelphia conference, representing Brazil for freedom of speech and the press. And the last paper I did was to represent Sudan for separatist movements. Overall, I liked all my position papers being that I put a lot of effort into each paper. Although I only won an award for one paper, I believe all three were award winning papers being that all had creative resolutions that could one day achieve peace in the world.

Philly MUN

The Philadelphia Model United Nations trip was my first big conference as well as my first overnight conference. Despite the knowledge I knew about my topic and about MUN, I still felt very nervous as well as bored because I did not want to debate about a topic for 3 to 5 hours straight! I had fun overall but when I was in committee session, things slowly started to fall apart. I did not know as much about my topic as I thought I did and I felt like I was not producing enough in order to be recognized by the other delegates in my committee. I got one resolution passed but I did not sponsor it completely, which made me feel left out of the whole process. I also did not have the best partner at this conference. And because of that, we did not win an award. I am very competitive so it frustrated me when I had to go back home empty handed. I had fun outside the committee sessions but other than that I felt very discouraged. I told myself I never wanted to do the MUN experience again but eventually I went on to go to the United Nations to have a conference with the encouragement of my friends as well as the inspirational anecdotes by my global history teacher. If there was anything I learned from the Philadelphia conference was that it takes time....