CHESAPEAKE — There will be rebel soldiers descending on Ironton Friday in a top-secret mission. Their aim is simple — overthrow Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

They may be decked out in the requisite camo gear, but they’re not really insurgents. Actually they’re talented and gifted students from Rock Hill Middle School, wanting to understand more about the world around them.

That’s the purpose of the annual Mock UN to begin at 9 a.m. Friday at the Ohio University Southern Campus and is open to the public.

“We do a lot of current events in the gifted classes,” Trena Haynes, Rock Hill gifted teacher, said. “This teaches real world problems. There is a lot of decision-making at the UN and how to solve problems in an international level.”

For the past 20 years the seventh and eighth grade TAG students adopt three countries, research their culture, history and current problems, coming up with a variety of resolutions to debate with their peers.

Rock Hill students will represent India and Mexico, as well as Venezuela. For India resolutions will focus on getting assistance from other countries to work on a vaccine for polio, Mexico will be the drug cartel and Venezuela its firebrand dictator Chavez, an outspoken critic of the U.S. foreign policy.

Preparing for the Mock UN is self-directed for the students who this year come from the seventh and eighth grade TAG programs at Rock Hill, Fairland, South Point, Chesapeake, Ironton and Dawson-Bryant. This is the first year for Ironton and Coal Grove schools to participate. Students from Symmes Valley will be there to observe with the goal of sending a Mock UN team next December.

“I want them to take on the responsibility,” Haynes said. “There is a lot of independent work. They absolutely love this.”

Chesapeake students will focus on Thailand, Japan and Sri Lanka this year with a resolution concerning the suicide epidemic in Japan while South Point’s TAG team want a resolution to allow the international adoption of more Chinese orphans.

“I give them a globe and ask what areas in the world do you want to focus on,” Chesapeake TAG teacher Terry Montgomery said. “I don’t assign. I don’t tell them exactly what to do. That is part of being a gifted teacher, just guide them toward it and not tell them exactly what to do.”

Montgomery does that by allowing them to surf the Net and offering them a list of problems that are happening in the world.

“They learn about the other countries, where they are, what their important geographical features are,” she said. “They learn about the religions. They learn what their feelings toward the world would be.”

After the research comes drafting resolutions that will be presented at the Mock UN and debated among the student diplomats.

“Some of them are pretty creative. Some are pretty straightforward,” Montgomery said. “It’s is usually the creative ones that stimulate the debate.”