Dr. Hyun Jin Moon addresses the NGO seminar at the Korean National Assembly.

UPF was well represented at the Global NGO Peace Seminar held this afternoon at the Korean National Assembly Conference Center on Yoido Island in Seoul. Several members of the UPF presiding council including Sir James Mancham, Dr. Eva Latham and UPF Secretary General Thomas Walsh addressed the gathering of Korean national assemblymen, foreign diplomats and ambassadors and leaders of Korea's growing NGO community, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and President Stanislav and Dr. Irina Shushkevich were also among the crowd of over 600.

The Hon. Hyuk-Kyu Kim, a senior Korean congressman, welcomed the group to Seoul and to the national assembly. UPF Chairman Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak briefed delegates on the progress of the World Culture and Sports Festival, of which this seminar was part.

The keynote address was given by Dr. Hyun Jin Preston Moon. He returned to the vision first announced in Hawaii by his father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, of "One Family Under God," and the prospects of the coming of a new era of peace in the 21st Century, centered on the Pacific Rim.

"The 20th Century was the most violent and bloodiest hundred years in human history," he told the audience, "and the 21st Century has gotten off to a difficult start, with terms like 9/11 and Darfur finding their dark place in history." The keys to humanity finding peace in this still-new century will not be found in the old centers of power centering on the Atlantic Ocean, but rather in the Pacific Rim, where 5 out of every 6 people on earth now live, he said.

"My Father's vision of One Family Under God is a vision shared by every religion and faith on earth," he said. "Whereas in the past religions and theologies have often divided the human family, this is one dream and one vision that can bring us all together." Without an acknowledgement of the role of the divine, he said, the United Nations and other world institutions would miss an extraordinary opportunity for peace.

The theme of peace and security in the Pacific was taken up by Professor Shin-Hwa Lee of Korea University. "Although the Pacific Region is relatively free of traditional conflicts and threats to security," she said, "there are in fact many non-traditional threats to the region that demand urgent attention. These include environmental pollution and resource depletion, and in particular the possibility of a water crisis fueled by the region's explosive population growth and economic progress."

Dr. Eva Latham, President of the noted Dutch NGO Human Rights Teaching International, told the group that despite the challenges, the prospects for peace would remain bright as long as there was clear communication. She charmed the audience with an account of how she was teaching English to a young Korean woman long-distance by Skype. And although most Koreans didn't know where the Netherlands was on the world map, she only needed to mention the name of countryman Guus Hiddinck, the former Korean national soccer coach, for instant recognition and smiles. The same technology that makes such little interactions possible will transform society from the bottom up, she said.

"A new transnational coalitions of citizens are emerging, knowing each other around the world, as in a village. This process of bottom up is rapidly reducing the distance between people in every sense of the word. These are some of the big things going on which one can observe and which are helping to make the global village a real possibility."