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leader Jose Ramos-Horta, former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, and former
Belarus President H.E. Stanislav. (Jong Heon Lee, UPI, Internet, 2/5/03)
Solomon Islands PM Visits Moon
Allan Kemakeza, Prime Minister of the financially troubled Solomon Islands, has left for talks
with Unification Church leader the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, probably also to take delivery
of a gift of ten fishing boats in South Korea. Three years ago Kemakeza attended a
Unification Church meeting there. (ABC News, Solomon Star, Internet, 1/31/03)
Zambian VP to Moon Conference Thanks to Milingo’s Ex-Wife
The Unification Church (UC) has invited Zambian Vice President Enoch Kavindele to Korea
for an early February leadership conference sponsored by the International Federation for
World Peace, founded by UC leader Sun Myung Moon. Church officials said that the
invitation was suggested by Maria Sung, former wife of Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel
Milingo. Milingo was for a time allied with the UC to form an African church in opposition to
the Roman Catholic Church. (Sheikh Chifuwe, The Post, Lusaka, Internet, 2/303)
Proposed School Meets Opposition in Ontario
The Unifcation Church (UC) purchase of a boarded-up high school in Winona, Ontario,
where it wants to teach English to college students from Korea, has caused concern in town,
and led ―almost to hate mongering,‖ according to the head of the proposed project. Some in
Winona object on the grounds that the town is simply not set up to host an influx of
students. In addition, some wonder if the UC has a hidden agenda—they worry that their
children may be at risk for recruitment. (Globe and Mail, Internet, 2/7/03)
Ex-Follower on Bush Team
Josette Chiner, a Unification Church member from 1974 to 1996—when she says she
became a practicing Episcopalian—and a former managing editor of the church-owned
Washington Times, has been nominated Deputy of U.S. Trade [sic] in the Bush
administration. If appointed, Shiner, who has never repudiated Moon, will have great
influence over trade in Africa and Asia, including Moon‘s Korean homeland, where he has
extensive business interests. (Ashley Pearson, MSNBC News, Internet, 4/22/030)
Farm ―Sealed‖ for Environmental Study
Brazilian authorities have sealed off a farm belonging to the Unification Church (UC) in
order to force the organization to carry out a study of the likely environmental impact of its
development, on the fringes of the world‘s largest wetlands, in Pantanal, in the state of
Matto Grosso do Sul. The UC has already set up a closed community for followers and built
roads and cut down forests, all without impact studies. (Reuters, Internet, 5/9/03)
Bridgeport U. Says No Moon Funding Now
The University of Bridgeport, which has received $110 million since 1991 from the
Unification Church, says that it will adopt a balanced budget for the coming year without
funding from the church. (AP, Internet, 5/27/03)
United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors
Tells of Life in the Group
Now that United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors leader Dwight York has been sentenced
to prison for decades of child sexual abuse, and the future of the group seems uncertain,
Habiba Washington, 27, is telling about her experience.
The Brooklyn-based communal-living Ansara Allah (the precursor of the Nuwaubians), in
which she grew up, was closed to the outside world, she says. ―You don‘t know anything but

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 61
what you know there.‖ She says that the abuse went beyond child molestation to include
the separation of families, and mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse over many
years. Girls and boys lived in separate buildings and York directed their every move. He
taught them that everything they had learned from white society was wrong, and that his
way was right, says Washington. He even changed them all from Muslims to ―Hebrews,‖ and
when the group moved to rural Georgia, where they are now, their settlement took on an
Egyptian theme. Some even became Christians, but the high ―god‖ was still York, who
enjoyed a ―Savior‘s Day‖ each June.
Washington said that York assured followers that they were helping other black people, so
they should not think of themselves as being in a ―cult.‖ He would ask them if they knew of
any black cults, and pointed out that all of the cults that the government had ―busted‖ were
white.
Looking back, Washington said: ―The community took the most important part of our lives
away from us. ..our childhood, when we were most vulnerable.‖ (WABC, New York,
Internet, 2/7/03)
Waldorf Schools
Lawsuit Renewed
A former Waldorf School parent and president of the People for Legal and Nonsectarian
Schools says that her group is suing public school districts in Sacramento and Nevada City,
CA, once again, claiming that the Waldorf school curriculum cannot be separated from the
religious philosophy of the late Rudolph Steiner. ―If Catholic or Lutheran schools cannot be
publicly funded, then neither can Waldorf,‖ she said.
The principal of the Waldorf School in Sacramento says: ―We teach about religion, but we
don‘t teach religion.‖ Anti-Waldorf activists say that classroom displays of natural objects,
like leaves and bark, are endowed by Waldorf teaching with a spiritual meaning, that they
are in fact pagan altars because some schools light a candle near them and recite a prayer
to the sun. (Bill Lindelhof, Sacramento Bee, Internet, 4/6/03)
Winifred Wright/Child Abuse
Prison Term for Starvation Death
Winifred Wright, whose religiously-based regimen of strict discipline and diet led to the
starvation death of an infant in the small group he led, has been sentenced to more than 16
years by a Marin County, CA, judge. Wright headed a household of four women and twelve
children.
Police say that Wright employed physical force and psychological coercion to control his
family, guided by a ―Book of Rules‖ that provided harsh punishment for those who broke
them, as when someone would sneak food during a routine 3-day fast. Punishments
included belt lashings and force-feeding of jalpeño peppers.
―If we had believed in taking him [the dead child] to the mainstream doctors for a checkup,
his life would have been spared,‖ Wright said. ―I have great sorrow over this, but our
shunning of Western doctors was not based on blind belief.‖
Wright‘s lawyer said that while the group‘s beliefs were unorthodox, perhaps even
―delusional,‖ they meant well. (Justin Pritchard, AP, Internet 3/15/03)
Judge Allows Bail for ―Deprogramming‖ Time
A Marin County, CA, judge has granted bail to Dierdre Hart Wilson—one of three women
convicted in the malnutrition death of a toddler they raised—in order that she can enter the
Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, in Ohio, a treatment facility for former cult