USBMUN

Durante los días 20, 21 y 22 de Octubre se desarrolló el primer modelo de las Naciones Unidas de la Universidad Simón Bolívar. En este modelo participaron alrededor de 250 estudiantes de diversos colegios de Caracas a los cuales les tocó representar un país en alguno de los comités simulados.

Los comités simulados fueron:
Conferencia Mundial de la ONU
DISEC
Security Council
Consejo de Derechos Humanos
Organización de Estados Americanos
Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte
Organización Mundial de Comercio
Isla de las Malvinas: Gabinete Argentino
Isla de las Malvinas: British Cabinet
Pacto de Punto Fijo

Durante el transcuro del Modelo los delegados trataron de resolver los problemas propuestos por cada uno de los directores. Para esto fue necesario desarrollar sus habilidades de negociación, de oratoria y su conocimiento de las reglas de debate.

Este evento es sin duda un hito en la historia de la Fundación para el Modelo de las Naciones Unidas de Harvard de la Universidad Simóm Bolívar (FENU) ya que requirió de un gran esfuerzo logístico por parte de esta organización. Este esferzo hubiera servido de muy poco sin el apoyo constante e incondicional de las autoridades de la USB, las cuales estuvieron muy atentas a cualquier contratiempo que pudiera presentarse durante el proceso de organización.

Siendo miembro activo de FENU me siento orgulloso al haber vivido y haber sido parte de este gran esfuerzo que marca una pauta historica en nuestra organización, que lleva a nuestra organización a un nivel nunca antes visto. Esta situación es el resultado del esfuerzo constante y abnegado de un grupo de delegados que se entregaron completamente a este proyecto y al esfuerzo de muchos delegados inactivos, los cuales sacaron tiempo de sus agendas para este proyecto. Hay que destacar tambien la importancia de nuestros patrocinantes, los cuales creyeron en nuestra empresa a pesar de ser la primera vez que esta organización se trazaba un evento de tal magnitud. A los colegios que confiaron en nosotros para hacer de este un evento concurrido les doy las gracias.

Por último solo me queda expresar mi orgullo al haber podido formar parte activa de este esfuerzo que nos permite crecer como organización y como personas. Gracias

Venezuelan Reaction

Several days ago a friend of mine sent me a video, which depicts an average American Joe badmouthing on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s speech at the UN General Assembly in its 61st annual session. I proceeded to post the video on my Youtube account and before I had logged off I already had a reply to the video. This has since been going for about a week now and as it might be expected that user always comes up with arguments that have absolutely no sustenance.

In order to keep up a healthy debate I have invited him on several occasions to come up with proof for many of the arguments he has used to defend President Chavez and the latest was an article posted by Greg Palast on June 25th, 2003. In this article the author expresses his concern regarding the media manipulation in the USA when it comes to Chavez and Venezuela. He also tries to quickly brief the reader on Venezuela’s history and how that history led to the democratic election of President Chavez, and here is his mistake. If you read the following quote and you are Venezuelan you might feel that it’s not in any way like what you learned in school; if you are not Venezuelan I encourage you to find less biased sources of information about Venezuela’s history.

This is how Greg Palast sums up 500 years of Venezuelan history:

“(…) Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note their color. White.
And not just any white. A creamy rich white.
I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.
And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola nuts -- just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying uniform of jeans and T-shirts.
Let me explain.
For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.(…)”

I invite you to read the whole article at http://www.alternet.org/story/16255/

These statements are not only biased, but are also racist. Venezuela has never had any social unrest due to racism or any kind of segregation law or apartheid. Venezuela has always had a strong mixture of different cultures like European, African and Indigenous. All Venezuelan culture is a result of this mixture, this melting pot in which every culture that has found its way to Venezuelan soil has been accepted and assimilated. The slightest hint that any demonstration, by any political party or group of people, is conducted by a dominant or exclusive race is a dishonour to the Venezuelan society and it’s customs.
This is just one of many statements by Greg Palast in which he shows his complete disregard and disrespect to Venezuela’s history and values and it is sad to know how people will try to twist a nation’s history for a political purpose.

This is the mentioned video's link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq2lc82mh6c#S3mVIysQfLA