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- A sprawling ranch in impoverished cowboy country, set
on the edges of Brazil's remote southwestern Pantanal swamplands, seems
an unlikely place to create a vision of paradise on earth.
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- But for the Moonies, the controversial religious sect
formally known as the Unification Church, it is a Garden of Eden in the
making. Thousands of the sect's devotees, mainly from Japan, Korea and
the United States, have flocked to this backwater corner of Brazil to
help to plough the rocky red soil.
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- Wearing wide-brimmed straw hats they brave long afternoons
by mosquito-infested muddy rivers to help to create the image of Utopia
dreamt up by their messianic leader, the Rev Sun Myung Moon. The 80-year-old
millionaire is ploughing millions of dollars into the vast swampy plains
of Mato Grosso do Sul state, an area the size of Britain, to build on
an ambitious dream to change the world.
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- Faced with shrinking numbers in his devotees' ranks
in the United States, where the Moonies had more than 30,000 followers
in the 1980s but now number only a few thousand, and unable to find a
site big enough in his native Korea, he seems to be making a last-ditch
attempt in Brazil to resurrect his sect.
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- Since 1994 he has spent more than £15.6 million
on a 80,000 acre site named New Hope Ranch, is now negotiating the sale
of another 200,000 acres in the region, and says will spend £1.2
billion in the area over the next eight years. "We plan to reforest
these dusty flatlands with native species and plant crops and show local
farmers that this area can be resurrected," said Cesar Zadusky, the
Moonies' ranch manager.
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- Four hours' drive from the nearest big city, through
shrub-covered fields filled with skeletal cattle, and five miles outside
the poor farming community of Jardim, a potholed gravel path leads to
the New Hope Ranch, which is at the heart of the Moonies ambitious project.
Welcome to the New Garden of Eden, a huge sign reads at the entrance.
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- The site contains a vast conference hall to seat 3,000
people, a temple, more than a dozen identical dormitory buildings, a
school and several other rectangular modern buildings. They are an incongruent
contrast to the barren surroundings.
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- About 2,000 of the sect's followers live in crowded,
army-style dormitories, working throughout the day on a greenhouse,
vegetable gardens, laundry and taking turns to cook and wash up.
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- In one corner of the ranch they have started an ostrich
breeding farm. Ostrich meat is a delicacy in Brazil's industrial capital,
São Paulo, and therefore a lucrative product. In the small town
of Jardim, Mr Moon's funds have helped build an aircraft landing strip
and plans to build several hotels.
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- "Before we can build our heaven on earth we have
to give education and training to the poor illiterate locals," Senhor
Zadusky said. Two hundred Brazilians from neighbouring farms and the small
town have already joined the sect, most of them lured by the well-equipped
school.
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- Brazilian politicians and leaders of the Roman Catholic
Church have voiced concerns about the Unification Church's intentions
in the poor cowboy territory and have warned locals that Mr Moon is a
messianic anti-Christ. The Moonies consider Jesus a failed Messiah, and
their "father" the Chosen One. His preachings mix elements
of Christianity, Confucianism and Buddhism and focus much on his self-professed
ability to matchmake couples.
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- The popular state governor in the region's capital,
Campo Grande, José Orcirio dos Santos has made it his mission
to find out where the money is going and why. "We are worried that
Moon will try an lure the vulnerable farming people into his sect but
can do nothing if people are tempted by his money," Mr Santos said
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- Marcio Santos Monteira, Mayor of Jardim's 20,000 farming
families, said: "They are supposed to contribute to the local economy
but this has not happened until now. The question is whether their project
is really meant to boost social development or is just a way to expand
their flock."
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- Dom Bruno Pedron, the Roman Catholic priest in Jardim
said: "We have heard all kind of stories about brainwashing and how
they convince locals to join the community. But it is difficult to say
because no one really knows what's going on inside their ranch."
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- But indebted landowners throughout the state have offered
to sell their lands to the sect leader. They are mostly pastoral lands
created by slashing and burning jungle over the past decades, and which
have proven infertile over the years.
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- "As long as the Moonies bring cash we will sell
our poor cattle lands which nowadays bring few returns," one farmer
said. Many local politicians were also befriended when Mr Moon offered
new ambulances to 32 small towns in the region and helicopters for politicians
at election time.
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- Although the owner of a sizeable business empire which
includes the Washington Times and a university in the United States, Mr
Moon has shown in recent years that he intends to take refuge in South
America. He already owns a bank and a newspaper in Uruguay.
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- His reputation suffered in the US after he was briefly
jailed there for tax evasion in the late-1970s and, more recently, when
one of his sons was accused of being a cocaine addict.
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- He regularly commutes between his £6.2 million
New York flat and a luxury estate in Uruguay. He has said that he eventually
hopes to take up full-time residence in the New Hope Ranch, where he and
his wife stay in a small wooden hut.
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- "Brazil is huge, with small mind. We will try to
open it and show that Third World can become rich," he said.
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- It seems he has found the backwater frontier area,
bordering Bolivia and Paraguay, is at the heart of the continent where
he plans to expand.
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