Model Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (‘MONU’)

Sao Paulo, Brazil

13 – 17 December 2006

In a highly unique setting, the alternative ‘UNPO General Assembly’ took place in the course of five days with selected young Brazilian students, embodying UNPO Member nations and peoples, discussing some of the most pressing matters affecting UNPO today, including identity, human rights, the right to self-determination and non-violent strategies to conflict prevention.

Several hundred students from universities and colleges all over Brazil met to debate and find solutions to global issues in the form of simulating international bodies, such as the UN Security Council, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the UN General Assembly, in addition to the newly first-time featuring UNPO simulation. During the event the selected students were assigned to represent the plethora of viewpoints, culture, interests and traditions of respective UNPO Members. Key topics at the UNPO sessions were: “Non-Violence versus Armed Resistance in the Face of Occupation” and “Conflict Prevention and the Role of Self-determination in the 21st Century”, topics to which several de facto UNPO Member representatives [such as Abkhazia, Iraqi Turkmen, the Ogoni, Oromo and Somaliland] had provided prior statements and background material to students in the several months long pre-session research phase.

UNPO was among the invited guest speakers at the Opening Ceremony of the event, attended by more than 500 students, UN officials, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil and prominent academia. Moreover, during the first day of the simulation, a two-hour seminar on UNPO was held to participating students by a member of the UNPO Secretariat. UNPO also held a consultative meeting with the International Department of the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, to explore possible future collaboration, as well as a continuation and expansion of the Model UNPO Simulation to South America and beyond.

UNPO would like to express in particular its appreciation of the work of the MONU - UNPO Board of Directors, conducting extensive research and preparing the event for months, with some also attending the de-facto UNPO General Assembly in Taiwan in October 2006. In particular UNPO Members acknowledge the work of the initiator Thomaz Napoleão along with Laura Waisbich, Adriano Giacomet, Fernanda Perez and Guilherme de S. Pastore, and all other Brazilian students participating in this exceptional youth initiative.

For more information, please contact Maria Skeie at the UNPO Secretariat, tel.: +31 70 3646 504.