2019 Award Recipients: Congratulations to Mr. Ramu Damodaran, Deputy Director for Partnership and Public Engagement in the United Nations Department of Public Information’s Outreach Division

Mr. Ramu Damodaran and Basil Ugorji

Congratulations to Mr. Ramu Damodaran, Deputy Director for Partnership and Public Engagement in the United Nations Department of Public Information’s Outreach Division, for receiving the International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation’s Honorary Award in 2019!

The award was presented to Mr. Ramu Damodaran by Basil Ugorji, President and CEO of International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation, in recognition of his outstanding contributions of major significance to international peace and security.

The award ceremony took place on October 30, 2019 during the opening session of the 6th Annual International Conference on Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding held at Mercy College – Bronx Campus, New York. 

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Religion’s Mitigating Role in Pyongyang-Washington Relations

Kim Il-sung made a calculated gamble during his final years as President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) by opting to host two religious leaders in Pyongyang whose worldviews sharply contrasted with his own and with each other’s. Kim first welcomed Unification Church Founder Sun Myung Moon and his wife Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon to Pyongyang in November 1991, and in April 1992 he hosted celebrated American Evangelist Billy Graham and his son Ned. Both the Moons and the Grahams had previous ties to Pyongyang. Moon and his wife were both native to the North. Graham’s wife Ruth, the daughter of American missionaries to China, had spent three years in Pyongyang as a middle school student. The Moons’ and the Grahams’ meetings with Kim resulted in initiatives and collaborations beneficial to the North. These continued under President Kim’s son Kim Jong-il (1942-2011) and under current DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, the grandson of Kim Il-sung. There is no record of collaboration between the Moon and the Graham groups in working with the DPRK; nevertheless, each has participated in Track II initiatives that have served to inform and at times mitigate US policy towards the DPRK.

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