Delegates to Model U.N. Protest Ian Smith's Speech

About 40 delegates to the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference currently meeting in Boston yesterday walked out of a keynote speech by Ian D. Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia, protesting his presence at the event.

The protesters later drafted a letter to the Secretary General of the Model U.N., Larisa R. Wright '87, accusing the conference organizers of "extremely poor and myopic judgment" in inviting Smith to deliver the keynote address.

"It seems very inappropriate to invite someone like Smith who is known for the oppression of human beings," said C. Ashford Baker from Goucher College in Towson, Md., one of the protesters.

Baker also criticized the Model U.N. for "knowingly bringing Smith to the conference in a clandestine fashion" and not informing the participants in advance about Smith's appearance.

Responding to the criticism, one of the conference leaders, Alan Crane '86, said the conference organizers only recently finalized arrangements for Smith's appearance.

Smith was the last man to govern Rhodesia under white minority rule before the country became Zimbabwe in 1979. He fought a civil war for a decade before acceding to Black rule and overseeing the transfer of power to current Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.

Smith, who is currently a member of Zimbabwe's parliament, received a reported $1300 honorarium for yesterday's speech.

The walkout occurred during an off-the-record address to 1100 conference participants at the Marriott hotel at Copley Place.

During the 30-minute speech, Smith criticized foreign aid to African countries as "a stimulus to economic decline" in many cases because it encourages continued population growth without solving underlying economic problems, according to students who attended the speech.

Smith called foreign investment a better solution to Africa's food problems than conventional aid, members of the audience said.

One protester explained his boycott of the speech by saying, "I felt that Smith was implying that colonialism was not bad for Africa."

Crane said, however, that Smith spoke on food problems "deliberately to stay away from controversy."

Another delegate said she was "disturbed" that the organizers would invite Smith despite the "passion that they knew Smith would evoke."

The Model U.N. is an annual fourday conference during which college students from around the country assume the roles of representatives of different countries and debate policy issues.

Model U.N. Secretary General Wright noted that Smith's views will be balanced by those of Ambassador J.M.J. Legwaila of Botswana, who will deliver the conference's closing speech on Sunday.

Wright said Smith was invited to speak "in the spirit of giving knowledge through debate."

A junior from Williams College echoed Wright's sentiment. Steven Theodore said that although he "didn't necessarily like [Smith], I want to hear what he has to say."

"Considering this is supposed to be the United Nations, a spot of controversy is not a bad way to start off the conference," Theodore said.