Suspicion Follows Rev. Moon to South America
by Larry Rohter
NOTE: This article appeared in the New York Times on November 28, 1999
~JARDIM, Brazil -- As far as the eye can see, there is almost nothing here
but pasture, with the distant line of the horizon broken only by tall
anthills and an occasional tree. But the Rev. Sun Myung Moon envisions
this remote and sparsely populated corner of Brazil as what he calls
"a kingdom of heaven on earth, a new Garden of Eden."
Moon, the 78-year-old founder of the Unification Church, who has been
rebuffed in the United States and is facing financial trouble in his
native South Korea, is seeking to reinvent himself here in the South
American heartland.
Through a venture he calls New Hope East Garden, Moon has bought thousands
of acres of pasture land and spent some $30 million, according to the
project's manager, in hope of building a spiritual and business empire
here that is to include investments in agriculture, industry and tourism,
as well as a university.
Such investment was at first welcomed in the neediest part of Mato Grosso
do Sul, a state whose own governor describes it as a land of "2 million
people and 22 million cows." But increasingly, Moon's visible presence
here is generating the same sort of opposition and suspicion that has
followed him elsewhere around the world during a long career as the
self-proclaimed "true father" and successor to Jesus Christ.
"No one knows what he's up to out there, what are the objectives of his
investments or the origins of his money," the governor, Jose Orcirio
Miranda dos Santos, said in an interview. "This has become an issue of
national security, and I think an investigation is needed."
Moon's initial warm reception has quickly chilled, with charges in the
news media and from local church officials that the sect is involved in
improper activities. In October, local Roman Catholic and Protestant
churches jointly issued an open letter accusing Moon of 10 forms of
heresy, urging "the people of God to keep their distance from the
Unification sect," and calling on local officials to "have the courage
to remove this danger."
"More than a sect, this is a business that hides behind the facade of
religion in order to make money," said Monsignor Vitorio Pavanello,
the Roman Catholic bishop of Campo Grande, the state capital. "He is
trying to build an empire by buying everything in sight."
But Moon's associates offer a different explanation.
"It is our goal and desire to do something great for this region,"
said Cesar Zaduski, a former president of the Unification Church in
Brazil and the general manager of the New Hope project. "Rev. Moon has
a lot of companies around the world, more than 300, and his intention
is to bring some of them here so that this region can get the benefit
of development and first world know-how and technology."
Zaduski said Moon was prepared to commit much more money to make the
New Hope venture viable. The objective, he said, is to produce fish,
exotic meats, fruit and wood for commercial markets here and abroad, and
to turn this area into a leading eco-tourism center within a few years.
Moon's representatives here said that their leader first visited
the region five years ago on a fishing trip and was impressed by its
wide-open spaces and enormous variety of wildlife. Since then, his
movement has bought 220 square miles of farmland in Mato Grosso do Sul
and a 310-square-mile parcel near Fuerte Olimpo on the Paraguayan side
of the nearby border, as well as hotels and other businesses.
Moon's big push in this largely undeveloped corner of Brazil comes
as the business conglomerate he controls in South Korea has nearly
collapsed. Because of the economic crisis that swept across East Asia
beginning in 1996, the debt of his Tong Il Group soared to more than $1.2
billion. Five of its 17 companies were forced into receivership last year,
and an automobile manufacturing project in China has also failed.
His diverse enterprises in the United States appear to be in better shape.
Those include a newspaper, The Washington Times, as well as Bridgeport
University in Connecticut, a recording studio and travel agency in New
York, and a cable network, the Nostalgia Channel. But Moon has indicated
recently that he is disenchanted with the country that has been his main
base of operations since the 1970s.
"America doesn't have anywhere to go now," he said in a speech in New
York last year. "The country that represents Satan's harvest is America,
the kingdom of extreme individuality, of free sex."
Moon's critics say that his view is growing harsher because of the
decline of his influence in the United States, where he was imprisoned
for a year after being convicted of tax evasion in 1982, and where he
has been the subject of embarrassing books and news reports that his
son and heir was addicted to cocaine and abused his wife.
While he was once believed to have about 30,000 followers in the United
States, the current number of church members is believed to be about
one-tenth that number.
But Zaduski said Moon's interest in South America resulted from a desire
to focus on the Roman Catholic world, after emerging from a Confucian
and Buddhist environment and spending a long time in a predominantly
Protestant atmosphere. No place, he added, has a larger concentration
of Roman Catholics than South America, in particular in the region of
the customs union called Mercosur, which consists of Brazil, Argentina,
Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile.
"What unites South America is Mercosur, and what is the heart of
Mercosur?" he asked. "This region here, where you can build a project
that goes beyond borders. If we can build something here that works,
it can be an example to many other parts of South America."
In recent years, Moon has been active in Uruguay, Brazil's southern
neighbor -- so much so that the capital, Montevideo, is now derisively
called Moontevideo by some. There, the sect has acquired the luxury
Victoria Plaza Hotel, operates the newspaper Tiempos del Mundo and
retains an interest in a bank, Banco de Credito, in which the government
intervened last year after complaints of irregularities.
Here, Moon built up good will early on by donating ambulances to mayors,
sponsoring barbecues for residents and making donations to political
campaigns. He also opened a school on his New Hope property, invited
local children to enroll and even offered to provide transportation from
their homes. But relations are now openly hostile.
"When they first began acquiring property here, we expected that they
would promote and contribute to the prosperity of our region by generating
jobs and taxes," said Marcio Campos Monteiro, the mayor of Jardim, a town
of 21,000 people. "But all they seem to be doing is stockpiling land,
without producing anything or hiring from the local labor force."
Monteiro contends that Moon's presence here has actually hurt the
local economy. The sect now owns 10 percent of the county, he said,
and government revenues have dropped because he has withdrawn so much
land from production and the tax rolls, claiming a religious exemption.
The New Hope site includes at least 20 buildings, but has less than
200 permanent residents and many of those who work there are Korean,
Japanese, American and European volunteers who rarely leave the compound
and come for 40-day courses of instruction, paying their own way as well
as making donations.
Civic and church groups have also begun to complain loudly, and have
even charged that local youths are being recruited and sent off
for indoctrination in Sao Paulo, where the sect has its Brazilian
headquarters. Though local police declined to discuss the matter,
there are also complaints that converts are being held against their
will at New Hope.
"I recently had two young people who had run away from New Hope come in
here seeking help in getting back home to Pernambuco," 1,500 miles away,
said Bruno Padron, the Roman Catholic bishop here. "They focus on the
poor and the needy, and once they have them in their family, they refuse
to let them go."
Recent reports in the Brazilian news media have also suggested that the
sect may be involved in drug trafficking and other forms of contraband
smuggling across the notoriously porous border with Paraguay in order
to generate revenues.
Miranda dos Santos would say only that "the federal government is looking
into those questions."
Zaduski dismissed such accusations as "crazy stories" and illogical. "Rev.
Moon comes here quite often, so if his people were doing something
illegal, he would not want to be so close," he said. "That would be
stupid, because he is a big target."
Despite the increasingly tense atmosphere here, Moon apparently plans
to plunge ahead. In September, the government extended Moon's visa for
two more years.
"He is really amazed by the way nature here is so pristine," Zaduski said.
"He wants the entire world to understand that the heavenly father wants
this treasure to be kept for all mankind, and that is why he is putting
so much of his own time and guidance into this."
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