Hyun Jin Moon Launches Mindanao Peace Initiative

Building on the foundation of the Global Peace Festivals in Manila and Mindanao, a coalition of partners led by GPF President Hyun Jin Moon launched the Mindanao Peace Initiative at a gathering in the Philippine House of Representatives, a rally at the Araneta Coliseum, and in cities across Mindanao in late February and early March 2009.

The initiative is chaired by Dr. Estrella Abid Babano, Director for the Department of Education in Region 10, and co-chaired by Father Benjamin Beltran, Director of the Sandiwaan Foundation in Lanao Del Norte in Mindanao. The Mindanao Peace coalition also includes representatives of Muslim, Christian, and indigenous communities, the Armed Forces, business, academia, and youth organizations.

Plans are underway to leverage the trust and good will secured across conflict lines to bring warring factions to negotiated settlements.

"The key to the success of the Global Peace Festival is simple," says David Caprara, chairman of the GPF-USA, who supported the Mindanao festival and is now director of the newly announced Global Peace Service Alliance. "Peace is not a political objective but a spiritual objective. Everyone is swept up into conflict and war, and everyone is a stakeholder in achieving peace.

"The GPF creates the conditions for peace not through the measured compromises of diplomats but in the hearts of the people," Caprara says. "It is a unique interfaith peace approach, coupling service with the vision of one family under God. It is a revolutionary paradigm for peace, and we see that it works. And Mindanao will be a model."

"In becoming peace builders, there is a need to shift perspective, traversing the terrain of consensusbuilding, and priming the ground for tolerance and understanding," says Nabil Tan, Undersecretary in the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process in the Philippines and GPF supporter. "All of us must participate in this noble effort. From whatever origin, calling, or social station, we are all peacemakers. We bear the responsibility to practice and promote the values of peace — respect for human dignity, justice, equity, freedom, social responsibility, tolerance, and solidarity."

The Global Peace Festival and Global Peace Service Alliance provide the framework for the meaningful peace building, but reconciling enemies, embittered by violence, is not easy. "It requires work," says Yeqing Li, secretary general of Youth Federation for World Peace, who traveled to Mindanao to support the festival. "But the dream of peace, of one human family, is in the hearts of all people. When people taste peace they find it is sweeter than the enmity they are holding. This is what the GPF can offer."

"Finally, I have found a strong ally [with the coming of GPF"> to Mindanao," Babano told Peace Initiative leaders in Cagayan De Oro City on March 5. "We are now in a renaissance period; this is a dawning and an awakening of a new era."

About Global Peace Festival

Led by president Hyun Jin Moon, Global Peace Festival (GPF) promotes and celebrates persons and programs that contribute to reconciliation, mutual respect, harmony and cooperation among the members of the whole human family, as "One Family Under God." In partnership with a variety of faith-based organizations, NGOs, government agencies, educational institutions, and members of the private sector, GPF encourages programs that strengthen God-centered marriages and families, facilitate intercultural and interreligious cooperation, and foster a culture of peace and service. Ongoing programs are implemented throughout the year and culminate in a biennial Global Peace Festival that consists of an international leadership conference, a social impact program, and a public celebration.