Diplomats Discuss Terrorism at Brandeis HS
By Marie Holmes

Recently, students gathered in Brandeis HS’s sprawling auditorium on the Upper West Side to attend a panel discussion entitled, “A Global Response to Terrorism: the U.N.’s Role.” The event, organized by Brandeis’ Model U.N. club and the United Nations Association of the United States (UNA-USA), the nonprofit organization which facilitates Model U.N. activities, featured speakers Kouroush Ahmadi, Counsellor for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Maurice Biggar, First Secretary for the Permanent Mission of Ireland; Kevin S. Kennedy, Principal Officer of the Executive Office of the Secretary General; and Jeffrey Laurenti, Executive Director of Policy Studies at UNA-USA.

The discussion was moderated by Bradford Billet, Deputy Commissioner for the U.N. Consular Corps and Protocol.

U.N. Day, the occasion which had drawn the speakers, was described by Mr. Kennedy as “a day when some papers were handed over to the U.S. government,” specifically, the last ratifications required to create the international entity. Contrasting the global situation of 1945, the year that the U.N. came into being, and today, Mr. Kennedy encouraged the students to view the work of the U.N. as “an evolutionary process,” of supreme importance, albeit “not very thrilling.”

“9/11, regrettably, changed everything,” Mr. Biggar told the students, adding that their generation would be forced to take account of terrorism in “a way that no other generation ever had.”

Speakers addressed various issues related to terrorism and international relations, including the difficulty of defining terrorism, the role of the U.N. and the current conflict between various U.N. member states and the U.S. regarding planned action against Iraq.

The students, several of whom stated that their course requirements had allowed little class time to discuss current affairs, were nonetheless able to respond to the panelists’ presentation with questions ranging from speakers’ views on the United States’ relationship with the U.N. Security Council to the role of freedom of the press.

Mr. Biggar, who also noted that the U.S has not signed the convention establishing the international criminal court, “and would not appear to wish to do so,” stated: “The position of my government is whatever action is taken in the end must be taken by the security council.” The other panelists concurred; Mr. Ahmadi went so far as to call the Bush administration’s cries of preemptive strike and regime change “erroneous concepts.”

Many students shared these views. “I think the U.S. is really influencing the U.N.” said Yneth Murillo. “The U.N. is supposedly an organization of the world, not the U.S.”

“The U.S. should not jump the gun on terrorism,” added fellow student Shirley Prudoth. While admittedly frightened by the turn of global events in the past fourteen months, students expressed considerable faith in the international community’s efforts to combat terrorism.

A few students did voice concerns that as the U.S. government and the U.N. deliberated, terrorist groups were planning further attacks.

“As teenagers,” Crystal Tejeda summarized, “we all see that the world is not all flowers and peaches.”#