Unification Church - History - 21st Century

21st Century

Since 2000, Unification Church's Pyeonghwa Motors has invested more than $300 million to the automobile industry of the DPRK. In 2000, "an event of historical importance" occurred, according to a live broadcast for the state-owned Korea Broadcasting System, as 78 North Korean girls and boys arrived at the Unification Church's cross-cultural "ice-breaker" event, where guests such as the minister of unification, Park Jae-Kyu, and the minister of culture, Park Jie Won were present.

In 2000, Unification Church bought the news agency United Press International. At the United Nations Headquarters, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid addressed an event of the Unification Church in collaboration with the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the UN.

The church met with the President of the Marshall Islands Kessai Note and discussed plans to invest US$ 1 million for construction of a new high school. The next year, he attended Moon's birthday party.

In 2003, on notification by the Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, about 500 Christians, Muslims, Jews and other international and interfaith tourists joined the Unification Church Middle East Peace Initiative "to such a degree that the Old Gates were opened by the Israeli police near the Wailing Wall, and by the Muslim leadership at Al Aqsa, without incident", as the official UN-report says. The Los Angeles Galaxy, which competes in Major League Soccer, played in South Korea during Unification Church's Peace Cup. That same year, Unification Church held the Interreligious Peace Sports Festival between the people of various faiths, which is, according to the UNESCO official data, "an annual sporting event designed to build and promote friendship and peace among people from different cultural and religious backgrounds using the powerful medium of sports competition". The college team of Sun Moon University, which some described as the best in South Korea won the tournament.

In 2004, one of the Unification Church pastors gave the official invocation to one of the formal events of Las Vegas chaired by the Mayor of Las Vegas.

In 2005, Chun Doo-hwan, the 12th President of the Republic of Korea, and Chung Mong-joon, the Vice-President of FIFA, attended the opening ceremony of the Unification Church-owned Peace Cup, along with Moon.

In 2006, the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa, 4th President of Sri Lanka Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, twice Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremasinghe and the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka W. J. M. Lokubandara were guest speakers at a UC event. In Korea, in response to a slanderous newspaper article, more than 700 members of the Unification Movement joined a rally and destroyed the office of the newspaper. Later on, the newspaper wrote a rebuttal.

Starting in 2007, the church sponsored a series of public events in various nations under the title Global Peace Festival. One such event was endorsed by Mwai Kibaki, the President of Kenya.

In 2007, Musa Bin Jaafar Bin Hassan, at the time President of the 33rd session of the General Conference, UNESCO's supreme governing body, was granted the title Ambassador for Peace by the Unification Church at the General Conference (United Nations). In 2012, Hassan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali (6th United Nations Secretary-General and current President of the UNESCO Panel on Democracy and Development) gave remarks at the Unification Church event in UNESCO's headquarters in France, along with Akiko Yamanaka (parliamentarian of Diet of Japan, Cambridge University professor and former Deputy-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan) and other 300 politicians and religious leaders.

In 2007, the Unification Church completed the construction of a peace center in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Since 2008, US government has provided aid in planning, development and coordination of the Global Peace Festival of the Unification Church. Georgetown University students took part in it, among many. UC held youth events in collaboration with UN-HABITAT and The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of Kenya. Year later, 5 representatives of the Unification Church (Universal Peace Federation) attended an annual (international ministerial-level) session of UN-HABITAT in its headquarters. In April Moon, then 88 years old, appointed his youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon, to be the leader of the church and movement, saying, "I hope everyone helps him so that he may fulfil his duty as the successor of the True Parents."

In 2009 Moon visited the country with his family while his son Hyung Jin Moon was greeted by parliamentarians and gave a speech in the British Parliament.

In 2009, UN spokesmen gave speeches at Church events. Hyung Jin Moon, now President of Unification Movement and a Harvard alumnus, met with the 14th Dalai Lama. That same year, Moon's autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen (Korean: 평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로), was published by Gimm-Young Publishers in South Korea. The book became a bestseller in Korea and Japan.

In 2010, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Unification Church-owned Manhattan Center during Africa Day event, which was also co-sponsored by the Unification Church. In collaboration with US government, the church organized a summer employment program for 250 disadvantaged teens.

In 2011, 48th President of Paraguay Juan Carlos Wasmosy, 49th President of Paraguay Raúl Cubas Grau, 50-th President of Paraguay Luis Ángel González Macchi and the President of the Chamber of Deputies Óscar González Daher participated in the Global Peace Festival of the Unification Church. The church joined with Morehouse College to launch Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School Leadership Academy. Students enrolled in the Academy "complete community projects, a health fair for the community surrounding the school as well as other service oriented activities". The Unification Movement received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Taiwanese Executive Yuan. That same year, representatives of seven religions from South Korea visited Pyongyang, North Korea, for the first time ever, in their joint efforts to unite the Korean Peninsula; the delegation was headed by members of the Unification Movement.

In December in Pyongyang, to mark the 20th anniversary of Sun Myung Moon's visit to the DPRK, de jure President Kim Yong-nam hosted the new President in the official residence. The latter donated 600 tons of flour to North Korean children of Jeongju Province, the birthplace of Sun Myung Moon. Also, after the 2011 earthquake in Japan, he donated $ 1.7 million to the Japanese Red Cross.

In February 2012, Stavros S. Anthony, the Mayor of Las Vegas, recognized the contributions of Unification Church's Little Angels Children's Folk Ballet of Korea. That year the Movement was constructing 70-storey twin skyscraper in Seoul at an estimated cost of $2 billion USD. A Russian senator who backed the church, invited it to hold its event in Federal Assembly of Russia. Global Peace Women was launched in Malaysia, a chapter of Unification Church-affiliated Global Peace Festival Foundation, with the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia as its chair. That same year, the Head of UNEP Achim Steiner and other UN dignataries gave remarks at an environmental event of the affiliate in UNEP Headquarters. The event brought together about 300 people including Keishu Shinso Ito, the highest-ranking minister in Japanese Buddhism, along with other religious leaders. At the opening of Yeosu Expo 2012, Kook Jin Moon, a son of Moon responsible for economic development of the movement, sat in front of the South Korean President Lee Myung-bak among the VIP group.

In 2012, a spokesman of an Unification Church-affiliated tourism-oriented body signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Taleb Rifai, the Secretary-General of UNWTO, "to promote a culture of peace through tourism".