Diplomatic Dynamics

As missiles fly over Yugoslavia, diplomats from the warring nations are working to bring a quick end to the conflict. In Ventura, more than 200 college students are experiencing similar pressure: no sleep, uncompromising personalities and international situations that seem impossible to resolve.

Since Wednesday and continuing through Sunday, students at the seventh annual Western Collegiate Model United Nations conference are simulating the regular business of the U.N. almost to the letter: There are strict rules of order, policy papers and resolutions--even an international court in robes.

When the students arrived at the Doubletree Hotel, nearly all were Americans, from about 20 colleges in California and other western states.

But for five days, they become citizens of other nations, immersing themselves in the diplomatic positions of their adopted countries and representing those positions on policy items put before them.

“You have to think, breathe, eat and sleep another country,” organizer Sondra Ziegler said. “That makes you more aware of the dynamics of the world and how difficult it must be to be a diplomat.”

“You begin to see how difficult it is to get anything done or even anything decided,” said Amy Gerick, an international relations major at the University of Nevada-Reno who was representing the United States on the U.N. Security Council.

This is the first year that the conference has been held in Ventura, after six years in Buena Park. Ventura College, Moorpark College and Cal Lutheran University sent delegates.

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Issues on this year’s agenda included biological weapons, bringing peace to the Middle East, protecting the rights of refugees and solving Asia’s economic woes.

“I think it definitely leads to a greater understanding of what’s going on around us,” Gerick said.

It would seem that as Americans, Gerick and her fellow U.S. delegates had an easier job representing their assigned nation. But being on the home team presents its own problems, she said.

“Even if you disagree with anything the government’s doing, you still have to take the government’s side,” Gerick said.

Representing France for Ventura College, James Armendariz said he has participated in Model U.N. for the past six years, and he thinks the experience will help him when he takes the State Department’s exam to enter foreign service.

“The first thing you learn is real diplomacy--not conflict resolution, real diplomacy--looking at something from a totally different perspective,” Armendariz said.

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Not all of the Model U.N. conference is spent pounding out resolutions or raising points of order.

But with so many future policy wonks roaming the halls--”international affairs obsessives,” Gerick called them--even a trip to the hotel hot tub can turn into an international incident.

That’s how diplomacy often works, Ziegler said.

“A lot of agreements,” she said, “are made in bars.”