Sun Myung Moon
October 27, 1974
Compiled by Taekon Lee
Seven hundred Unificationists fasted for seven days in front of the United Nations in New York from October 21 to 27, 1974, to protest the treatment of Japanese wives of North Korean repatriates. True Father initiated the fast for humanitarian and providential reasons. He noted that Korean men living in Japan who married Japanese women and then repatriated to North Korea had “cheated” the wives who were “now ill-treated and persecuted under the regime.”
In this connection, the Unification Church published a volume of testimonies from these women, If I Had Wings Like a Bird, I Would Fly Across the Sea, which publicized their plight. Apart from the humanitarian issue, Unificationists undertook the fast within the context of a North Korean proposal, which had gained traction in the UN General Assembly, that called for UN forces to be removed from South Korea.
True Father stated that the fast’s purpose was to “make naked the evil reality of what they are doing in North Korea and in all the communist regimes.” Unificationists’ efforts continued after the fast, and on December 9, 1974, the UN General Assembly approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution providing for maintenance of the United Nations Command in South Korea.