BMUN is happy to announce that this year’s theme for the Saturday Night Delegate Activities will be “*Let’s CAN Hunger*” where decorations and costumes will represent favorite foods from around the world. In support of this year’s conference cause, World Food Program, the theme aims to show solidarity in the fight against world hunger. Any food related-wear is appropriate and some possible things to dress up as include fruits, salt and pepper, M&M’s, the color representing your favorite food group, food mascots, your favorite Wheatie’s champion, or even farmers from around the world –although, creativity is definitely encouraged! This year’s activities will include the delegate dance, entitled “*You Are What You Eat*,” and a casino with Blackjack and Roulette. There will be raffle prizes, a free photo booth and a refreshment stand. Of course, there will also be a dance floor and a DJ. To address hunger in our own local community, *BMUN will also be having a canned food drive Saturday night. Delegates who bring in canned and other non-perishable foods will be given an extra $50 worth of BMUN casino money for every item they donate. * The activities will take place on *Saturday, March 6th.* The doors to Pauley Ballroom will open at *8:00 p.m. and all activities will end at 11:00 p.m. We hope to see you all there!
Delegate Dance Information
February 27th, 2010 by hscA Message on Laptop Policy
February 17th, 2010 by hscThere have also been many questions regarding the laptop policy in committee. There will be no laptops allowed in committee, either for typing or researching. It is unfair to those who don’t have a laptop and in a small committee like ours, it can be a distraction. If you really need to just check a fact or read a resolution, there will be desktop computers available for use. Hope that helps clarify questions regarding laptops. Please email me if there are any questions regarding this matter.
-Shashank
A Message on Position Paper Grading
February 10th, 2010 by hscThere have been a few questions regarding position papers. There is an official BMUN policy that will not really apply to this committee regarding position papers. As long as you turn a paper in by 4pm on Saturday March 6th, you will still be in position to win any award (except Research awards). To be eligible for research awards to you need to turn your paper in by February 22nd. Hope that helps clarify any questions regarding that. Please email me if there are any questions regarding the conference and our committee. See you soon!
-Shashank
Time Magazine Article :Mon, December 6th, 1971
February 10th, 2010 by hscMiddle East: War Jitters
THE Middle East may be problem No. 5 to you,” Egyptian President Anwar Sadat recently told a visiting diplomat, “but it’s crisis No. 1 to me.” Last week Sadat was doing his best to make it crisis No. 1 for the rest of the world as well. Wearing a khaki uniform, he viewed sandbagged positions along the Suez Canal and delivered bellicose pep talks to the troops. “I have come to tell you,” Sadat said, “that the time to fight has come, that there is no more hope. Our next meeting will be in Sinai.”
Sadat’s statements set off the Middle East’s worst war jitters since a ceasefire began along the canal 16 months ago. Floodlights and neon signs were doused in Cairo, blue dimout paint was smeared onto auto headlights and plate-glass windows. Civil-defense equipment was pointedly inspected, including electronic amplifiers that would supposedly magnify groans from victims trapped under debris. At the same time, the top military commanders of a dozen Arab nations met in Cairo and, according to Egypt’s hawkish Chief of Staff Major General Saad Shazly, “voiced full desire to participate in the battle against Israel.”
The Israelis responded with scare headlines: EGYPT ASSEMBLES LARGEST
ASSAULT FORCE SINCE D-DAY,*and SYRIA LIKELY TO JOIN FRAY. The first nationwide test of air-raid sirens since the Six-Day War of 1967, added to the scare. Premier Golda Meir, addressing Labor Party leaders in Tel Aviv, warned: “We cannot permit ourselves to carry on with the attitude of business-as-usual with Sadat saying to his people not that he will win, but that he will take them into battle.”
Five Failures. Despite such alarms, war did not appear imminent—at least not until after a United Nations debate on the Middle East, scheduled to open this week at Arab insistence. The Arabs were apparently trying to generate pressure, principally on the U.S., to end the stalemate that has existed since the cease-fire began. Dissatisfied with U.S. peace efforts, the Egyptians hope to sway opinion in the U.N. General Assembly, where there is a built-in anti-Israel majority. Ideally, the Egyptians would like to achieve a U.N. vote for economic sanctions against Israel, and an arms embargo that would embarrass the U.S., Israel’s largest supplier.
If Sadat was trying in a none too subtle manner to put pressure on Washington, so was Mrs. Meir. Israel is anxious to obtain at least 50 more U.S.-built Phantom jets, particularly in view of continuing Soviet military aid to Egypt. The U.S., however, insists that Middle East arms are still in balance and refuses to provide additional planes. Last week Israel played up the news that eight to ten more Soviet TU-16 “Badger” bombers had arrived in Cairo and that they were capable of carrying air-to-ground Kennel missiles with a range of 50 miles. Washington maintained that in spite of these Badgers the Middle East arms balance had still not been upset. The Israelis thereupon complained that U.S. intelligence has erred on at least five prior occasions, including a failure to detect the initial Soviet missile movements into the Canal Zone when the ceasefire began last year.
Ample Leverage. Mrs. Meir arrives this week for a face-to-face confrontation with President Nixon. Her friends in the U.S. gave her ample leverage last week. The Senate voted 81 to 14 for $500 million in military credits for Israel, half of it specifically earmarked for Phantoms. Eight Senators representing both parties meanwhile paid a private call on Secretary of State William Rogers to urge him to change his stand on Phantoms for Israel. Rogers not only stood fast but told the group that Israel’s intransigence on peace terms was isolating it in world opinion. The U.S., he said, was Jerusalem’s only true friend.
Rogers is likely to say as much to Mrs. Meir; in addition, U.S. officials will contend that even if they did approve Israel’s purchase of more Phantoms, the planes would be a long time coming off production lines. The fact is that if Washington wanted to, it could provide the planes almost immediately. Two years ago, a fleet of 50 Phantoms for Israel was put together out of allotments ticketed for the U.S. Air Force; the planes were hurriedly swabbed with the white and blue insignia of Israel and rushed across the Atlantic. Plainly the Administration is sidetracking the present request so as to pressure Israel into peace concessions. But with U.S. elections upcoming, Nixon may be hard put to continue saying no.
Super Dilemma. The domestic ramifications of the situation are not lost on the Arabs. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott in Cairo last week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad, a shrewd and seasoned diplomat, professed to be confused. “It is something we cannot understand—how a superpower wild certain responsibilities about peace in the world can be affected by some votes in an election. We don’t understand how it is commonly accepted that the Jews are a community completely separate from other Americans, as if their loyalty is to Israel rather than to their own country.”
Riad also wondered why a superpower like the U.S. should have any difficulty at all telling Israel precisely how to behave. “I recall what Dean Rusk said to me in 1968,” Riad told Scott, “when I asked him about the U.S. position on withdrawal by Israel. He said, ‘There is no doubt that we don’t want any country to annex territory of another country. This is our policy, so the Israelis should no doubt withdraw from your land.’ I replied, ‘Why, then, don’t you make a public statement? That’s all we want.’ Mr. Rusk said, ‘We are a superpower. We are not Upper Volta or Gabon, and if we say that Israel should withdraw, then they must withdraw.’ ”
Continued Riad: “Mr. Rogers has said Israel should withdraw. He has said that the U.S. would use all its influence to see U.N. Resolution 242 implemented and the U.S.’s own plan implemented. When you hear these words from a big power—that it will use its influence—well, it’s something that has big meaning. That is why we agreed to the U.S.’s playing a role. But if it turns out that the role is no more than that of a small power like Nicaragua or Costa Rica or Malawi, what’s the point in receiving any American representative?”
One Small Incident. Riad assured Scott that in spite of Sadat’s fiery statements, Egypt is not intent on war. He said, “When you hear from us that there will be no more discussion at the United Nations and that we refuse Resolution 242 [calling on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories in exchange for secure and agreed borders]. then you can say that Egypt is ready to fight.”
The trouble is, however, that warlike words ring louder than peaceful protestations. Sadat, by having repeatedly proclaimed 1971 as Egypt’s “year of decision” against Israel, and now by telling the army that the time to fight has come, is painting himself into a corner. Using another image, an old U.N. hand last week put it thus: “Sadat, like Nasser before him, has developed a habit of hanging himself on a hook and then pleading with the major powers to get him off.”
Before they do, though, one small incident could occur that might get out of hand. Significantly, Israel has already dropped warning hints that if Egypt attempts to resume even limited warfare in the Suez Canal Zone, its troops will retaliate in full force. There will not be another war of attrition, the Israelis insist, but an all-out conflict. And then problem No. 5 would again become everybody’s crisis No. 1.
*Egypt has an estimated 70,000 men stationed along the canal, in addition to 10,000 commandos training for hit-and-run raids. It also has an estimated 1,000 pieces of artillery in the area, including 203-mm. cannon with a 30-mile range, as well as nearly 1,000 tanks and an undetermined number of Frog ground-to-ground missiles. Israel’s opposing force is smaller but well equipped, better trained and is dug in along the formidable, 100-mile Bar-Lev Line. Moreover, it is supported by a superior air force.
Time Magazine Article: October 25th, 1971
January 28th, 2010 by hscThe World: East Pakistan: Even the Skies Weep
IN New Delhi last week, one member of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet was heard to remark: “War is inevitable.” In Islamabad, President Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan spent the better part of a 40-minute television speech railing against the Indians, whom he accused of “whipping up a war frenzy.” Along their borders, east and west, both India and Pakistan massed troops. Both defended the action as precautionary, but there was a real danger that a minor border incident could suddenly engulf the subcontinent in all-out war.
Several factors are at work to reduce the likelihood of such an explosion. The Indian-Soviet friendship treaty, signed early in August, deters India from waging war without consulting the Soviets. At the same time, rising discontent and political and economic pressures within West Pakistan have also placed restraints on Strongman Yahya Khan and his military regime. Nonetheless, war remains a distinct possibility. As Mrs. Gandhi said last week at a public meeting in South India: “We must be prepared for any eventuality.”
Intolerable Strain. The current dispute has grown out of the Pakistani army’s harsh repression of a Bengali movement demanding greater autonomy for the much-exploited eastern sector of the divided nation. The resulting flood of impoverished East Pakistani refugees has placed an intolerable strain on India’s already overburdened economy. New Delhi has insisted from the first that the refugees, who now number well over 9,000,000 by official estimates, must be allowed to return safely to their homes in East Pakistan.
Before that is possible, however, a political solution must be found that would end the Pakistani army’s reign of terror, wanton destruction and pogroms aimed particularly at the 10 million members of the Hindu minority in predominantly Moslem East Pakistan (pop. 78 million at the start of the civil war).
Once, Sheik Mujibur (”Mujib”) Rahman, leader of the Awami League, the East’s majority party, might have held the key to that solution. As the overwhelming winner of the country’s first national elections last December Mujib stood to become Prime Minister of Pakistan; now he is on trial for his life before a secret military tribunal in the West on charges of treason.
Though Islamabad has ordered the military command to ease off on its repressive tactics, refugees are still trekking into India at the rate of about 30,000 a day, telling of villages burned, residents shot, and prominent figures carried off and never heard from again. One of the more horrible revelations concerns 563 young Bengali women, some only 18, who have been held captive inside Dacca’s dingy military cantonment since the first days of the fighting. Seized from Dacca University and private homes and forced into military brothels, the girls are all three to five months pregnant. The army is reported to have enlisted Bengali gynecologists to abort girls held at military installations. But for those at the Dacca cantonment it is too late for abortion. The military has begun freeing the girls a few at a time, still carrying the babies of Pakistani soldiers.
A Million Dead. No one knows how many have died in the seven-month-old civil war. But in Karachi, a source with close connections to Yahya’s military regime concedes: “The generals say the figure is at least 1,000,000.” Punitive raids by the Pakistani army against villages near sites sabotaged by the Mukti Bahini, the Bengali liberation army, are an everyday occurrence.
The fighting is expected to increase sharply in the next few weeks, with the end of the monsoon rains. Both the Pakistani army, most of whose 80,000 troops are bunkered down along the Indian border, and the Mukti Bahini, with as many as 60,000 guerrilla fighters, have said that they will soon open major new military offensives.
Plentiful Arms. On a recent trip deep into Mukti Bahini territory, TIME Correspondent Dan Coggin found an almost surreal scene. He cabled:
“Leaving the road behind, I entered a strange world where water is seasonal king and the only transport is a large, cane-covered canoe known as the country boat. For seven hours we plied deeper into Gopalganj subdivision in southern Faridpur district. The two wiry oarsmen found their way by taking note of such landmarks as a forlornly decaying maharajah’s palace and giant butterfly nets hovering like outsized flamingos on stilt legs at water’s edge.
“As darkness approached, we were able to visit two neighboring villages, with about 25 guerrillas living among the local folk in each. The guerrillas were mostly men in their 20s, some ex-college students, others former soldiers, militiamen and police. Their arms were various but plentiful, and they had ammunition, mines and grenades.
“A Mukti Bahini captain told me that the Bengali rebels are following the three-stage guerrilla warfare strategy of the Viet Cong, and are now in the first phase of organization and staging hit-and-run attacks. So far the guerrillas in the captain’s area of operations have lost about 50 men, and larger army attacks are expected. But the Mukti Bahini plan to mount ambushes and avoid meeting army firepower headon.
“On my way back to Dacca next day, I came upon a convoy trucker who had been waiting for five days for his turn to board a ferry and cross the miles-wide junction of the great Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. As we huddled under the tailgate to keep dry, a shopkeeper joined us. Gazing at the puddle forming beneath us, he said: ‘Even the skies are weeping for this land.’ ”
Always Hungry. As conditions within East Pakistan have worsened, so have those of the refugees in India. The stench from poor sanitation facilities hangs heavy in the air. Rajinder Kumar, 32, formerly a clerk in Dacca, says he is “always hungry” on his daily grain ration of 300 grams (about 1½ cups). His three children each get half that much. “They cry for more,” he says, “but there isn’t any more.”
Malnutrition has reached desperate proportions among the children. Dr. John Seamon, a British doctor with the Save the Children Fund who has traveled extensively among the 1,000 or so scattered refugee camps estimates that 150,000 children between the ages of one and eight have died, and that 500,000 more are suffering from serious malnutrition and related diseases.
Welcome to Historical Security Council!
December 27th, 2009 by hscDear Delegates,
My name is Shashank Iyer, a senior at UC Berkeley. I have the distinct privilege of serving as your head chair at BMUN 58, which will be held at the UC Berkeley campus from March 5th through the 7th. For the most part, this blog will be the best way to stay updated and as we move closer and closer to the conference it is best to check up with this blog on a regular basis. If you have any personal questions regarding the conference in general or HSC in particular, please feel free to contact me at siyer6@berkeley.edu. Hope to see you all soon.
-Shashank
Hello world!
December 10th, 2009 by hscWelcome to BMUN Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!