A United Nations peace garden
“I did not learn to yield. I did not learn to kneel.” These bold declarations are spoken in the epic Korean film, The Great Battle , by one of Korea’s famous military heroes, Yang Man-chun, Lord of Ansi Fortress. The 2018 film, seen by millions of people, depicted the true story of how Yang Man-chun and the soldiers and people of the Ansi fortress-city held off the Tang Dynasty’s army of 500,000 men for 88 days in AD 645.
The Ansi fortress was the final bulwark of the failing Goguryeo Dynasty against the powerful and fearsome Chinese invaders. Yang Man-chun was not fully allied with Goguryeo General Yeon Gaesomun, but as Ansi fortress commander, he invested everything to unite his people despite suffering, hunger and death. They ultimately forced the Chinese to retreat and saved the fortress.
This is just one of many stories about the brutal foreign invasions the Korean people have endured. We have been able to protect our beautiful mountains and rivers for millennia because of our patriotism and willingness to sacrifice. As True Parents, Father Moon and I uphold the Korean Peninsula as the land where all civilizations will blossom and bear fruit.
Nonetheless, the unfortunate 70-year history of division in Korea continues because the ideological barrier between democracy and communism still takes precedence over the love of family and clan. Parents, children and siblings both north and south have had to live for decades without knowing whether their family members are alive or dead—even in the era of the internet. The line of lamentation that divides the Korean Peninsula and separates blood relatives is a geographical line, but that is superficial. The real division is over worldviews and values. It is the fierce confrontation between atheism and theism, over the question of whether or not God exists.
Father Moon and I have invested sincere devotion and great effort to end the Cold War and unify North and South Korea. Beginning in 1968, we spread the Victory Over Communism (VOC) lectures throughout Korea and around the world to reveal the falsehoods of communism. In the 1980s, our members developed VOC materials into the CAUSA Manual and gave CAUSA lectures on campuses, in conferences, to students of all ages, pastors of all faiths and social leaders in all fields. The newspapers we established globally, such as The Washington Times , provided accurate information about the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the reality of life under communist governments.
As I just described, in 1990 we provided the spiritual energy for President Gorbachev to continue on his path of reform, which led to the abandonment of communism as a structured global power. And our meeting with Chairman Kim Il Sung opened the gates of exchange for the sake of unification between North and South Korea. Since then, the UPF has expanded to more than 190 countries, serving as another foundation upon which the international community can cooperate in and benefit from the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.
And yet it seems to me that the new generation of South Koreans do not understand how the Korean War arose and why the unification of our people is necessary. Therefore, today, I am working even harder for this cause. This is one purpose of the Peace Road activism. As a culmination of the Peace Road events in 2015, riders in Korea cycled to the Imjingak Pavilion, located north of Seoul at the Imjin River, which divides the Koreas. From that site, they could see the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and North Korea. The participants created a dramatic moment by singing in Korean the song, “Our Cherished Hopes Are for Unity.”
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All Koreans feel a deep gratitude to the United Nations. Were it not for the United Nations, the Republic of Korea would not exist. When the North Korean People’s Army, with Soviet backing, invaded South Korea on the morning of June 25, 1950, their ambition was to communize South Korea. They might have succeeded, as Korea was a small, poor country whose name was hardly known to the wider world. But the United Nations swiftly called on its member nations to defend democracy on the Korean Peninsula, and 16 countries sent troops while others sent medical support. The UN forces fought hard, risking their lives in an unfamiliar land to protect freedom and peace.
At that time, as I mentioned above, my husband was confined in a death camp, sentenced to hard labor at the Hungnam Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory. He was freed soon after the UN forces landed at the port of Incheon in September 1950. They pushed their way up into the northern part of the peninsula as far as the city of Hungnam. The prison camp guards were killing all the prisoners, but the night prior to my husband’s scheduled execution, the guards learned about the approaching UN forces and fled. Heaven surely was behind the UN Security Council’s decision to send a multinational force to turn back the communist invasion. The ultimate reason for the UN peace-keeping action was a hidden one, to save the only begotten Son and protect the only begotten Daughter. In accordance with God’s will, our lives were preserved.
Why would God have protected our nation, the Korean people, in that historically difficult and troublesome crisis? The world was just recovering from World War II, and now it plunged into another tortuous battle on a global scale. The fact that our national anthem includes the words, “May God protect and preserve our nation,” points to the answer: It can be explained best in terms of God’s providence.
To complete the providence, in 1943 God sent His only begotten Daughter, the first woman who could receive God’s first love since the Fall of Adam and Eve, to Korea. As do all people, this only begotten Daughter had to grow to maturity. She needed time until she could recognize, understand and accept her responsibility for the salvation of humankind. A child cannot simply go out and lead the providence. That is why God protected His only begotten Daughter until she grew to the age when she could know Heavenly Parent’s mind, feel Heavenly Parent’s heart, and determine with her own will to own Heavenly Parent’s mission.
God preserved the environment of religious freedom for the sake of the fulfillment of Jesus’ final words in the Bible, “Surely, I am coming soon.” Jesus and the Holy Spirit called and led the only begotten Son and only begotten Daughter to complete the mission of the Messiah as the True Parents of humankind. To protect this mission, Heaven guided the UN forces to enter the war to defend freedom.
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The United Nations established its headquarters in New York City at the end of World War II. Seventy years have since passed. There are three other major UN offices, in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi. But even though the world has entered the Asia-Pacific era, there is no major UN office in Asia.
I have recommended that the UN open its fifth international office in Korea, specifically, in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the 38th parallel. I am supporting various groups, including the Universal Peace Federation and the Citizens Federation for the Unification of North and South Korea, in their efforts to turn the DMZ into a global peace park. This will bring the issue of Korean reunification to the attention of the world’s people as no other action can.
All the nations of Asia would be pleased to serve as the site of a new, global UN headquarters, but I believe that Korea has unique qualifications. It houses the international headquarters of the Universal Peace Federation and of the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace. Spiritually speaking, as the nation in which True Parents were born, Korea has something very deep within its culture that can serve the world.
Some 70 years ago, the UN forces shed blood and sweat for the sake of peace in Korea. By ending the division on the peninsula, the UN would complete the mission of those soldiers who gave their lives, and inspire peace in the world. In his speech given at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2000, my husband announced our vision of a peace park in the Demilitarized Zone. Fifteen years later, in May of 2015, at the UN Office in Vienna, Austria, I proposed that a fifth UN office be built there. The president of the Republic of Korea himself proposed to North Korea at the UN that a peace park be built in the DMZ. If North and South Korea invite the UN to build its fifth office in the DMZ, it will, by that very act alone, turn a theater of war—where so many on both sides of the conflict shed their blood—into a Mecca of peace.