UM students have a tricky job: representing Cuba

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
UM students have a tricky job: representing Cuba
UM students will participate in a U.N.-like event representing the Cuban
government.
BY NOAH BIERMAN
nbierman@MiamiHerald.com

Alexander Correa has spent months studying the international policies of
Fidel and Raúl Castro's Cuba to defend them with all the passion he can
muster.

It's an admittedly awkward position for a Cuban-American kid, the son of
exiles who fled the dictatorship, and who is president of the University
of Miami's chapter of Jóvenes por una Cuba Libre, Youth for a Free Cuba.

So what gives? The University of Miami's top-tier model United Nations
delegation has been handed the tricky task of representing Cuba this
year. They'll be judged on how well they advocate for that government's
interest on a simulated world stage. Maybe that wouldn't be such a big
deal if the team came from, say, Albuquerque, Dubuque or Tuscaloosa.

But this is Miami. It's like asking students in Taiwan to represent The
People's Republic of China.

''I spoke with my grandfather about it. His reaction was: How can you be
representing the government that threw me out of my country?'' Correa said.

None of the 22 team members was born in Cuba, but there are a few Cuban
Americans and Venezuelans, whose politics are increasingly defined
through an anti-Castro lens, in the group. The conference organizers who
assigned UM students to represent Cuba must have a devious sense of humor.

''I'm sure it's very interesting in South Florida to say: Can you
separate yourself from your opinions of the Cuban government?'' said
Michael Eaton, executive director of the National Model United Nations.

It's common for teams to represent countries that are unpopular at home.
About half the schools will travel to the New York conference from
abroad. German students from the Ludwig Maximilians-University of Munich
will represent the United States, though many of their countrymen
vehemently oppose U.S. policies on Iraq, global warming and other
international issues.

Still, even Iran or North Korea might have been easier to defend in
Miami than Cuba.

''Strictly, this is a representation,'' Correa, 20, says more than once,
emphasizing that he is not changing sides in real life.

Correa said he was conflicted about the assignment, though he would not
have abandoned the team.

Correa believes that when Cuba is free some day, he will have an
advantage if he understands conditions on the island better. Sure, it's
just a simulation. But when the team poses with the Cuban flag at the
conference, Correa will be proud.

''It's the same Cuban flag that existed before the 1959 revolution,'' he
said.

POWERHOUSE TEAM

UM's National Model U.N. team is a powerhouse, more successful than the
school football team in recent years. They've been named among a dozen
top-tier teams -- out of more than 200 universities and more than 3,000
international students -- three years in a row representing Cypress
(2004), Amnesty International and Tonga (2005), and Somalia (2006).

Students practicing on a recent Friday afternoon were diligent in
preparing to win a fourth trophy when the conference begins in New York,
Tuesday. Correa made sure everyone signed up for a team guayabera in the
right size. Students passed out copies of detailed Cuban-government
position papers they had written. Just for fun, Correa gave them some
impromptu salsa lessons as practice wound down.

More importantly, the students spent two hours simulating a United
Nations committee meeting, with each student representing a different
country.

''The king of Saudi Arabia remains adamant in emphasizing the right to
develop,'' one student said after she was recognized.

The action wasn't always easy to follow, but the students definitely
captured the bureaucracy. Delegates made parliamentary motions to limit
or expand speaking time and then debated them. They offered competing
motions on which topics to debate in which order and then debated those
motions. They offered further motions on how long they should hold
informal caucuses and then debated them.

''Delegates, decorum. Delegates, please return to your seats,'' Federico
Cuadra shouted when time expired on one of the caucuses. Cuadra, a 2006
UM graduate who helped found the United Nations club on campus, now
serves as a part-time coach for the team. He and fellow leader Patricia
Mazzei wanted to make sure the students were following all the
parliamentary rules so they won't lapse into informal speech during the
conference and lose points.

The caucuses were frequent and frantic. Students gathered around laptop
computers crafting possible resolutions. The clusters would move as the
students looked for new international allies and dropped old ones.
Volume rose as delegates made sure the interests of France or China or
South Africa were heard.

''I would like to bring everyone's attention to a working paper on land
management that we'd like to get passed today,'' Anjuli Pandit,
representing India, shouted.

NO CLASS CREDITS

Students do this for love, and perhaps, to build their résumés. They get
no money or class credit. But it is a social network of some of UM's
most engaged students from around the world -- China, India, Tanzania,
Mexico, Panama, Russia and more.

When they practice, some represent their home countries.

Cuadra, 22, said he would never have earned his job at the American
Nicaraguan Foundation if not for the model U.N. experience -- which
teaches diplomacy, research and negotiating skills.

''They're amazing,'' said Ambler Moss, a former U.S. ambassador to
Panama who teaches many of them in his U.N. classes on campus. ``They
should do well because everyone in Miami knows more about Cuba than they
want to know.''

The Cuban assignment was not entirely random. Each college team chooses
10 countries or nongovernmental organizations, such as Amnesty
International, it would like to represent.

Then the national organization makes assignments from that list.

UM and Miami are great places to study Cuba.

The students have contacts among high-level defectors and meetings with
visiting scholars, authors and faculty in the Institute for Cuban and
Cuban American Studies.

''We're going to be heavily scrutinized'' at the conference, said
Stefano Rotati, a junior from Miami. ``They're going to think we have
biases.''

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