Japan sent envoys to Senegal to destroy the relationship between the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), founded by the leaders of the Unification Church, and two schools it had built there.
by Massimo Introvigne
“Bitter Winter” is following with great interest and concern the persecution of the Unification Church (now called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) in Japan after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. The assassin offered as motivation for his crime that he intended to punish Abe for his collaboration with the Family Federation, a religious organization he hated, he claimed, because his mother went bankrupt in 2002 after her excessive donations to the group.
Following the crime, an old campaign was revamped by lawyers and others hostile to the Family Federation mostly for political reasons, as they had resented for decades its successful sponsorship of anti-Communist initiatives. It was claimed that the Family Federation was an anti-social organization. Press conferences and an unprecedented media campaign of slander followed, until the government decided to seek the dissolution of the Family Federation as a religious organization.
Meanwhile, a witch hunt started targeting in Japan members of the Family Federation and of organizations connected with it through acts of discrimination prohibited by both the Constitution of Japan and international human rights law. A case in point concerns the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), an NGO that has enjoyed for more than twenty-five years general consultative status at the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The “general consultative status,” which the WFWP received in 1997, is different from the “special consultative status” granted to thousands of NGOs. General consultative status is comparatively rare. It is granted after a thorough investigation, according to the ECOSOC rules, to “fairly large, established international NGOs with a broad geographical reach,” which have offered “substantive and sustained contributions” to the aims of the United Nations in “several fields.”
There is no doubt that the WFWP has been founded in 1992 by the leaders of the Family Federation, previously called the Unification Church, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon and her late husband Reverend Sun Myung Moon. This is by no means concealed and is clearly explained on the web site of the organization. On the other hand, the aim of the WFWP is not to proselytize for the Family Federation but to empower women internationally through charitable and educational work. Those who participate in the activities of the WFWP belong to all religions or to none.
It appears that Japan’s persecution and political vendetta against the WFWP has now extended to faraway Senegal. “Bitter Winter” has interviewed on the unbelievable case of Senegal Moriko Hori, the president of WFWP Japan. All her claims are supported by documents “Bitter Winter” has seen.
Q: What is the case in Senegal all about?
A: Since 1995, WFWP Japan had been operating a vocational training school called “JAMOO1” in Dakar City in Senegal to support women’s financial independence. WFWP provided certificates from the government of Senegal after the students finished the program. With the certificate, the graduates were able to start their own businesses. For those who could not start a business right after the graduation, WFWP operated the training shop “Salon de Couture JAMOO” to give them on-site experiences. Due to its efforts, JAMOO1 was recognized as part of the “Best Practices of Millennium Development Goals” by the United Nations ECOSOC in 2008. Since the beginning of the project, all the operations were funded by WFWP Japan and WFWP USA. More than 1,200 students have attended JAMOO1 and among those who received certificates, 160 graduates were able to start their own businesses. JAMOO1 became one of WFWP’s signature projects and was famous among local people in Senegal. JAMOO1 eventually became too small due to the large number of students who heard of the good reputation of the school. In addition, the school was located on a rented property and had to move a couple of times due to the owner’s wishes. So, the principal of JAMOO1 planned to build our own school building.
Q: What about your cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs?
A: Upon learning of the situation of the school, an official of the Japanese Embassy in Senegal suggested to the principal of JAMOO1 to apply for the “Grant Assistance for Grass-Roots Human Security Projects” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. The principal was advised to apply for the governmental grant not in the name of WFWP Japan but of the Senegal-based “Organisation pour la Paix des Femmes” instead. It is because the Ministry in Japan might not have accepted an application by WFWP, but this was not connected with the relationship between WFWP and the Family Federation. According to the official, the Ministry was more likely to give a grant to a local organization than to an international organization like WFWP. Following this advice, the school principal applied the grant by using the name of a local female organization. By 2017, “Organisation pour la Paix des Femmes” had received approximately ten million JPY. It built a two-story building in Tivaouane Peulh City in 2018. Since 2019, JAMOO2 started to operate as a second vocational school of WFWP in Senegal. The principal of JAMOO1 also served as the principal of JAMOO2. WFWP Japan was the organization that launched the projects JAMOO1 and 2, although the grant from the Ministry, which only supported JAMOO2 and not JAMOO1, was given to the local organization in Senegal. The claim later made by the Japanese Communist Party that WFWP, an organization related to the Unification Church, had received Japanese citizens’ hard-earned tax money is completely off the mark. It is true that JAMOO2 was able to receive this grant because it was backed by a Japanese NGO called WFWP Japan, but the money went to a local organization in Senegal, not to WFWP Japan. Additionally, WFWP Japan continued to support the operations of both JAMOO1 and JAMOO2 with its own money. There was an agreement with the Ministry that the project will be monitored for five years after the grant was awarded. After these five years, even without the consent of the Ministry (but in this case without Ministry’s funds), the school building could be renovated. In fact, WFWP Japan had been requested by the principal to support a third-floor expansion and was preparing the funds.
Q: What happened after the Abe assassination?
A: At the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of Japan in November 2022, the member of the Japanese Communist Party Keiji Kokuta attacked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying “It is a serious problem that the tax money of Japanese people was donated to a school operated by an affiliated organization of the Family Federation (Unification Church). This money should be refunded.” This Foreign Affairs Committee meeting was broadcasted by the national TV and covered by mainline media. The situation of the vocational training schools JAMOO in Senegal became an important issue in Japan. In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan insisted that the school was a project of the Japanese government. It then began to interfere not only in the construction but also in the operation of the school. The Ministry also demanded that the principal of JAMOO2 should cut all ties with WFWP Japan. The Ministry said that JAMOO2 is a project of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, so they don’t want any other organization to support the school financially. In addition, they requested JAMOO2 to submit financial statements to the Ministry. Then, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent special envoys to Senegal to investigate whether there were any connections between JAMOO2 and the Unification Church. The school principal was asked to have the photos of JAMOO2 removed from the WFWP Japan website because the Communist Party and other parties of the opposition were using those photos to attack the Japanese Embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition, the special envoys said that those photos will also cause problems to JAMOO and WFWP, so they wanted them deleted. Later, when the Communist Party during the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives accused Prime Minister Kishida of having given a governmental grant to WFWP, the government explained that the Ministry had no knowledge that the JAMOO project was connected with the WFWP. However, when the principal had applied for the grant, she had used documents with WFWP name and logo. Also, by the time the principal applied for the grant, JAMOO1 was quite famous as a project due to the recognition by the UN. Moreover, when JAMOO2’s completion ceremony was held, WFWP logos were all over the school and the representative from the Embassy of Japan could not have missed them.
Q: This looks like a strange operation, conducted for Japanese domestic political purposes in a foreign country…
A: Yes. Since the Japanese Communist Party launched its campaign against the school, the staff from the Japanese Embassy called the school principal many times for hours to ask questions about the relationship between WFWP and JAMOO2. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan sent envoys from Tokyo to investigate thoroughly the school building, looking for any trace of the WFWP. Also, the envoys conducted interviews with the principal, teachers, and even with the students. The principal was asked to submit all kinds of documents. In total, the staffs from the Embassy and the envoys visited the school seven times. The principal was not sure why she was asked so many questions. She was terrorized by the aggressive attitude of the envoys. They listed many problems the Unification Church has had in Japan, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe by a “second-generation member of the Unification Church” (which was of course not true: the assassin was never a member of the church), and said that the church must be eradicated from Japan. They said it was unthinkable that JAMOO2 and the Japanese government may keep a relationship with the WFWP, which they called “a front of the Unification Church.” Due to the relentless investigations and pressure, the principal was in a critical state both mentally and physically and was hospitalized for a week. The staff of the Japanese Embassy in Senegal said, “This is just to appease the criticism from the Communist Party and the Japanese public opinion and is not intended to confiscate the school. If the school principal accepts the changes requested by the Ministry, there will be no further discussion on JAMOO in the Diet of Japan.” According to the Embassy staff, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was spared from being further pursued by the “opposition party” (meaning the Communist Party) in the Diet because WFWP Japan removed traces of its association with JAMOO on the Internet. In response to the attacks from the Communist Party, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan made a statement that the Ministry did not give the grant to WFWP but to a local women’s organization in Senegal. Due to this statement, the Ministry requested JAMOO2 to erase all traces of the WFWP from the school.
Q: But what did it mean “erase all traces”?
A: The Ministry asked to remove all WFWP logos from the wall, the school signboard, the uniforms, and even from the certificates of JAMOO2. The Ministry also asked to change the school’s name, the phone number, email address, and the registration of the school, as the school had been registered as a WFWP project before. The contract was then changed so that the school would not be handed over to a local NGO but would continue to be managed by the Japanese government. Not only that, the pressure from the Japanese Embassy on the principal who ran the two schools also affected the operation of JAMOO1, a WFWP activity that had no connection whatsoever with the Japanese government. By 2023 JAMOO1 had zero enrolled students and was forced to close. The Ministry asked the president of WFWP Senegal who was one of the teachers of JAMOO2 to leave the school. The school principal was asked by the Ministry not to keep any contact with WFWP Japan, and her contact records were also checked. At this point, the WFWP had lost its project in Senegal, one that we had supported for twenty-eight years.
Q: But does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan have the power to issue orders to a school in Senegal, just because it contributed some money to it?
A: Legally speaking, the principal in Senegal did not have to follow the requests by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. However, the principal was so intimidated by the pressure from the Ministry that she thought she may lose the school if she did not comply. The final result is that a school that the WFWP has supported for twenty-eight years has been taken away by the Japanese government. Not only WFWP volunteers for Senegal who launched and supported JAMOO, but also the members of WFWP Senegal, Japan and many other chapters who had supported the project were devastated to hear this news. This project, which had been approved by the United Nations for inclusion in the best practices list, was taken away from us for political reasons within Japan. Our frustration and helplessness cannot be expressed in words. It is a clear and unacceptable human rights violation.
Q: But couldn’t the government of Senegal have stopped the abuse?
A: It could not prevent envoys from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to visit JAMOO2, as the Ministry had supported it financially, although it was not the only support and never had anything to do with JAMOO1. Once there, the scare tactics that terrorized the principal achieved the result. I have been to Senegal and know that the local government deplores what happened. Some Senegalese foundations and municipalities are now looking forward to WFWP starting a new project in Senegal. I was told that they would help as much as they would be able to when it will happen.