United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

Topic: The Myanmar Crisis

Background
After a long history of military rule marred by violence and instability, 2011 seemed to be the turning point for Myanmar, marking the beginning of a series of political reforms that aimed to establish the country as a flourishing democracy. In 2015, the country held its first openly contested elections in over 2 decades, electing Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party into power. Myanmar’s reputation had begun improving internationally as well; the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the country in 2011, and The Economist selected Myanmar as the country that improved the most in 2015.

Unfortunately, this period of relative peace was short-lived. In the 2020 elections, the NLD party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won by a huge margin, completely dominating the military-backed opposition USDP party. The USDP, however, rejected the election results on the basis of voter fraud, and on February 1st 2021, Myanmar’s military staged a coup, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the ruling party. As of today, the country remains under military rule and shows no signs of backing down. It is up to the UNSC to come up with a suitable response to the growing crisis in Myanmar.

Director Biography
Sahil Kuchlous
Sahil Kuchlous is a junior at Harvard College studying Computer Science and Mathematics. He grew up in Bangalore, a city in South India, and began his MUN journey as a freshman in high school. He have now chaired multiple conferences at Harvard, including UNSC at HNMUN 2023 and HMUN India 2023, one of Harvard’s international high school conferences. He also competes on the Harvard MUN team.

Outside of Model UN, Sahil is enthusiastic about computer science research. He also enjoys playing a wide range of sports, and is a member of the Harvard Climbing Club. In his free time, he enjoys reading fantasy fiction books and playing the piano. This will be his first time visiting Africa, and he’s very excited to meet everyone at the conference!

Sophia Weng
Sophia is a senior at Harvard College studying Social Studies with a focus on the theory of technology and a secondary in mathematics. She is from Montgomery County, Maryland, located just outside of Washington, D.C. Sophia started Model UN in college and found a wonderful community of people through the activity (so she has stayed). She competes on the collegiate model UN team but loves staffing conferences even more than the competition.

Outside of Model UN, Sophia runs her residential community on campus and TAs for the statistics department. In her free time, she enjoys doing puzzles and playing trivia games and can often be found hiking in the woods. Sophia is excited to be your crisis director for the UNSC to explore the Myanmar crisis. You can expect twists and turns in our committee that challenge and surprise you!