League of Nations, day 1

By Astrid Dudian

The League of Nations seemed to not waste any time at all on any mock debates. The Colombo-Peruvian conflict emerged a heated discussion, the delegates of Colombia, France, Czechoslovakia, Japan and the USSR giving most of the speeches. Many representatives of the nations had different perspectives on the problem at hand.

Countries such as Bulgaria, Cuba, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania stated that Peru was the initiator of the conflict, meaning they should be held accountable for their actions. Other countries such as Czechoslovakia, the British Empire and Greece believe the blame is on both sides of the conflict. France, Germany, Latvia, Czechoslovakia and Greece responded to the motion proposed by the USSR on the topic of holding one of the two nations responsible for the conflict by declaring that the focal point in solving the problem should be finding a diplomatic solution by negotiating instead of directly sanctioning one of the opposing parties. Some of the discussed solutions included keeping the old borders, negotiating a new treaty that satisfies both Colombia and Peru, further investigating the problem in order to apply the rightful sanctions and sending or creating a special force that would supervise the border to avoid any future attacks.

The delegates brought many ideas and various perspectives to the table, generating an interesting debate with many points of information and keeping a lively atmosphere. The students interacted a lot with each idea; constantly finding new issues to discuss that could potentially worsen the situation.

The chairpersons treated the situation calmly, while still being active in the discussion and helping some of the delegates that weren’t familiar with the MUN conferences with the usage of the proper terms. They were very interested in the topic at hand and implicated themselves as much as possible.

The debate ended with the discussion of potential solutions, but no resolution has been voted yet.