This is reprinted from La Prensa (Managua, Nicaragua), July 5, 1995, as translated by Nina Makarova

Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification Church, the multimillionaire and anti-communist, was received yesterday by President Chamorro.

Yesterday morning the head of the Unification Church, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, his wife Hak Ja Han Moon, and an important delegation of his Movement "The Association For The Unity of Latin America" (AULA) visited President Chamorro as a part of a tour of 20 Latin American countries.

Before Nicaragua, Rev. Moon and his spouse visited 13 countries: Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Guatemala, where they were received by seven presidents; among them were: Menem (Argentina), Sanguinetti (Uruguay), Guasmosy (Paraguay) and Leon Carpio (Guatemala).

After visiting Nicaragua, Rev. Moon and his wife will continue their intense tour and visit Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, Bahamas, Guyana, Surinam and, finally, Venezuela.

AULA has the purpose to form unity of Latin American countries through spiritual and technical training of its people, which could enable those countries to cooperate with other more developed countries, such as the United States, promoting at the same time the transferring of technologies and big Asian capital.

According to the thesis of Moon, who claims to have a divine mission, there are two forces to bring world peace: mental power and economic power.

Moon, a Korean resident in Washington, has been promoting unity in every direction, starting with the unity of family, the unity within Christianity and Protestantism and the unity of Latin American family.

In the 1980s Moon was considered to be the main anti-communist in the world because he promoted Christian values and opposed atheism, which is the base of Marxist philosophy.

Before the collapse of the socialist bloc, Moon was received in Moscow by Mikhail Gorbachev. He warned him that without faith in God his vast empire was doomed to demolish. And it happened, indeed.

His presence in the United States has been questioned by the most liberal circles and in one case he was imprisoned and put on trial. Moon defended himself, saying that the court case was political and racist and was aimed to destroy his anti-community philosophy.

Moon talks about the spirit of positivism because [the economy cannot develop successfully if] the spirit is sick. Supporting his thesis, Moon points to the United States which is powerful economically but not spiritually, and this is the reason for such social problems as family breakdown, the increase in drug abuse and crime. Moon and his wife are parents of 13 children.

According to his words, in order to deal with this loss of values in the North American society, Moon has invested many millions of dollars in the conservative newspaper The Washington Times which, he said, will soon reach national level.

Moon admitted that the newspaper brought him economical losses, but he said that soon this situation would be changed and The Washington Times would beat other papers, those most liberal but with long traditions, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times. Then he announced that he would start a new paper, to cover Latin American issues, especially economy (something like The Wall Street Journal).

On their part Moon and his group are planning to make large investments into Latin America, following the pattern of his impressive success in Korea, which enabled Rev. Moon to dedicate himself to spreading his philosophy throughout the world.

During his meeting with President Chamorro and later with Minister Antonio Lacayo, Moon emphasized the necessity of Latin American unity. He mentioned that traveling from one country to another felt like being still in the same nation. God created the world without borders. Moon did not specify if he had concrete plans to invest in Nicaragua.

Yesterday night Moon and his wife arranged a banquet in El Olof Palme with 150 persons attending, and a presentation of his philosophy followed by an hour and a half discussion on the topic "True Family and I."

Reprinted from American Neighborhood.

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