Terror in Japan

Volume 2 | Issue 6 | Article ID 1570 | Jun 25, 2004 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

Terror in Japan

Meredith Box, Gavan McCormack

that Japan as a whole continues to face in the The Red Army (1969-2001) and Aum early twenty-first century. Supreme Truth (1987-2000) Dissent, Repression, Violence, 1960s and 1980s

Meredith Box and Gavan McCormack After 1945, democracy and a liberal- parliamentary system replaced wartime totalitarianism in Japan, but the democratic project was compromised from the outset by its

context: incorporation within a U.S.-led global system. Citizens who demanded reform or ABSTRACT: Observers of early twenty-first- insisted on the exercise of rights they believed century Japan commonly note economic, guaranteed under the constitution found political, and social crisis, on the one hand, and themselves marginalized. In practice, the pessimism, lethargy, or helplessness about the constitution was of only secondary importance. possibility of reform, on the other. Yet Japan's The U.S. relationship was the key determinant civil society was idealistic and energetic in the of Japan's postwar sociopolitical landscape. early postwar decades. What happened? The reform movement that captured much of the Movements for civil rights, for worker or trade vitality of the early postwar decades was either union rights, and for local control of education foreclosed, as many were co-opted in the "all- ï¿½ all launched as part of the process of giving for-growth" economism, consumerism, and the life to the abstract principles of the constitution corporation, or crushed in successive waves of ï¿½ were confronted by the bureaucratic repression of dissidence as the cold war order machinery of a state set on shrinking the took shape. Political parties sacrificed broad bounds of the legitimate. Enfeebled and vision and ideals to narrow-interestintimidated, groups committed to social justice articulation. While the mass base of the reform and grassroots democracy resorted to movement was discouraged, demoralized, and "persuasion" and "enormous pressure" to depoliticized, one minority in the late 1960s advance their agenda.1 As their persuasion and turned to violent revolution and another in the pressure were met by further repression, they late 1980s turned inward to seek spiritual gradually resorted to violence.2 satisfaction. Both paths led to violence. This article looks at the course of the student In keeping with this pattern, the student and movement between the late 1940s and the late broader civil movements of postwar Japan were 1970s, with particular reference to the Japan constitutionally conservative. That is to say, Red Army, and at the new religious movement they looked enthusiastically to the fulfillment of Aum Supreme Truth in the 1980s and 1990s. the pacifist and democratic ideals of the Both adopted "terrorist" tactics, by almost any constitution, while so-called "conservatives" understanding of that term. However, they were committed to its overthrow. Under were children of their times, reflecting the pressure, however, as they found themselves same deep social, political, and moral problems confronting instruments of state power bent on

1 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF repudiating what they saw as coresymbolic spaces in cities, railway stations, and constitutional principles, restoringairports for brief periods. bureaucratic privilege and consolidating a system oriented primarily to the service of U.S. The 1960s wave of rising student militancy strategic purpose, sections of the student peaked in the occupation of most of the movement resorted to violence. As thecountry's universities, forcing the suspension of contradiction between civil movements,classes for a full academic year (1968-69). including students, and state power sharpened, From their bases in one or another campus the postwar era became marked by waves of building, militant students of various factions militancy and repression. The waves peaked in fought both against state power, in the form of 1950 and again in 1960 ï¿½ in 1950, when the police, and against each other, in a spiral of students made vain attempts to resist the interfactional violence as hegemony over the 4 widespread bureaucratic interventions in the campuses was contested. The level of factional universities, implemented on orders of the violence (uchiï¿½geba) in these fierce, internal Occupation authorities, and the sackings of left- struggles over doctrine or territory was of such wing staff,3 and in 1960, with the mass intensity that eighty-five people were killed and demonstrations against the renewal of the five thousand wounded between 1968 and 5 security treaty with the United States. 1988.

A new wave of such militancy began to gather After a year of intense confusion and growing force in 1963-64, when some student factions violence in 1968-69, however, the occupations began using gebabo (gewalt, or violence were broken; the militant ranks split as the mass of students retreated, tired and dispirited, staves) and helmets in their demonstrations. to face prolonged court battles. When classes The struggles against the Japan-South Korea resumed in August 1969, the minority Normalization Treaty, which was seen as an extremists went underground. The term expression of Japan's incorporation into kageï¿½kiha (extremist) had hitherto referred Washington's global cold war strategy, to all helmeted, masked, gebabo-ï¿½wielding expanded as the war in Vietnam intensified and students irrespective of faction or ideology. was fought to a significant degree from Henceforth it referred in particular to the Japanese bases. The appropriation of land for a handful of militant groups that persisted in new Tokyo airport at Sanrizuka (now Tokyo struggle, most prominent among them being International Airport at Narita) occasioned the Red Army (Sekigun). fierce struggles, partly because of the belief that such an airport would constitute part of a * * * war-oriented strategy. Apart from their adoption of a broad social agenda around such At the end of the 1980s a very different mood issues, students protested that universities and prevailed. High growth and prosperity had other public institutions were being subverted wrought a deep transformation of values and by cold war priorities. They protested also aspirations. Faced with what seemed to be the against impersonal, bureaucratic power in atomization and alienation of advanced academic and other institutions ï¿½ poor capitalist prosperity, new religions flourished conditions in tertiary institutions, inadequate or offering meaning, community, and spiritual dilapidated facilities, dull and unimaginative fulfillment. Aum Supreme Truth (Aum teaching, overcrowded classes, rising fees. Shinrikyo) was especially attractive to the They zigzagged in snake-dance demonstrations, idealistic young because it seemed to represent fought with gebabo, occasionally used Molotov a way out of their frustration with the cocktails to bomb police posts, and occupied pressures and values of "progress" and

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"rationalism" in the world of their parents. Like desire was driven off, if necessary, by savage their predecessors in the political sects of the beating. Training included prolonged 1960s, Aum's recruits and activists shared a meditation sessions, sometimes in confined sense of failure and closure. Their activities underground spaces (for up to five days),8 and escalated through the early 1990s, culminating the search for enlightenment in the Buddhist in the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway sense of freedom, beyond Karma or desire, in a system in 1995. state beyond good and evil, where freedom reigned. Complete freedom was equated with Launched in 1987 as a religious organization, subordination to the will of the Guru, who alone Aum's early practices reflected approaches and experienced full enlightenment. In order to ideas familiar in Japanese "new" religions, share his wisdom, disciples engaged in various including yoga, spiritual guidance, and the practices, drinking his bath water or his blood, promise of "miracle" experiences. Aum was and seeking to adjust body and mind rhythms to headed by Matsumoto Chizuo (b. 2 March his by complex electronic circuitry. The line 1955), also known as Asahara Shoko, a partially between death and salvation was a fine one, and blind former acupuncturist, "quack" medicine death, in any event, was seen as liberation, to dealer, and yoga instructor. Asaï¿½harabe welcomed. described himself as the "one and only person who has acquired supreme truth" and he Aum's ascetic practices and eclectic theology attributed to himself supernatural powers. He merged with an imaginative world that fit the traditional Japanese profile of founder of Japanese youth were familiar with in virtual a new religion ï¿½ volatile, aggressive,form from computer games, manga, and TV: confrontational, visionary, filled with grievance the world of violent, cataclysmic clashes and sense of mission. He visited India and Tibet between the warriors of good and evil. In the in search of "the way" and was blessed by the early 1990s, especially following the Gulf War 6 Dalai Lama among others as a holy man. As of 1991, Asahara's prophecies of catastrophe Aum evolved, its doctrine took shape based on and doom grew more vivid and obsessive. He early, or Tantric, Buddhism and incorporating spoke of plasma weapons that would atomize mystical, millenarian elements of Taoism, human bodies, of large mirrors suspended in Hinduism, and Christianity. In 1991 Asahara space to turn the sun's rays on cities to destroy declared himself the Christ ï¿½ his books them, and of vast laser guns. Most of humanity contain pictures of him on the cross, crowned would be wiped out, he suggested, and only the with thorns. elite saved.

The name "Aum" was taken from the Sanskrit By the time of the March 1995 Tokyo attack, word used in mantras and prayers,the cult had some ten thousand members, of representing the interlocking powers of the whom about one thousand were full-time universe (often written in English as "om"), and dedicated "monks," shukke, living in special the attributes of the sacred Hindu trilogy of communities. Most of them were in their Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the gods of twenties and thirties, young, ambitious, well 7 creation, preservation, and destruction. Aum educated; some were highly trained scientists adherents undertook rigorous spiritualand graduate students in physics, chemistry, training, according to a practice that tended to biology, medicine, and electrical engineering. combine culturally "familiar" elements of the Mind-reading, prophecy, levitation, purity of discipline and bashing of the old Imperial Army purpose: all helped to attract them. with some of the physical and spiritual hardships of Zen Buddhism. "Bad" Karma or * * *

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Both the Red Army and Aum Supreme Truth more difficult for them to operate in Japan.10 cult members were sensitive to the deep social, They took literally the slogan "One, two, many political, and moral problems produced by the Vietnams." Over time, the Red Army Faction narrowly focused, conservative Japanese state evolved into three distinct groups, the Yodo that was being constructed by bureaucrats and Group, which soon relocated to North Korea, their American mentors. Both groups believed the Japanese Red Army, which relocated to that their recourse to systematic, coercive Lebanon, and the United Red Army, which intimidation (commonly described as "terror" stayed in Japan. by the Japanese government and the Japanese and international media) was renderedThe Yodo Group legitimate by their purity of purpose.9 They drew on the political ideals and aspirations of Their numbers were few ï¿½ most likely no their generation but diverted and dissipated more than a few dozen, including them in directions that now seem destructive or "sympathizers" ï¿½ but the ambition of the even crazy. Frozen out of society as "other," Yodo Group members was grand. In the search their critical imagination and organizational for a base for international revolutionary capacity failed them, and in both cases the activities, they first favored Cuba, but Cuba most radical, apparently, of movementswas far away, and when a mission there in the produced at their center characteristic features early months of 1970 was rebuffed, North 11 of the society they rejected. Instead of radical Korea was chosen faute de mieux. On 31 alternatives, they offered merely a distorted, March 1970, nine Red Army Faction members, reverse image of the narrowly focused,most of them students aged between sixteen conservative Japanese state. and twenty-seven, brandishing Japanese swords, took over a domestic JAL flight (the Sekigun ï¿½ Red Army (1969-2001) plane was named "Yodo") and diverted it to Pyongyang.12 In the revolutionary base strategy The Red Army Faction (Sekigun-ha), formed by they espoused at the time, North Korea had no militant students in Tokyo in August 1969, special significance; it was simply relatively analyzed the campus occupations, the battles, easily accessible and gave them the first base the mass arrests, the preparation forin their global strategy. Once in North Korea, resumption of classes, the heightenedhowever, the Yodo Group's goal gradually repression and surveillance and concluded that shifted from world revolution to the liberation it amounted only to a temporary reversal. The of Japan by the adoption of North Korean-style revolutionary wave, they decided, was not Kim Il Sung Thought. North Korean president receding but about to break. There was little Kim Il Sung is said to have taken a keen evidence to support such a proposition, but the interest in the young men, visiting them, alternative was to concede that their original describing them as "golden eggs," meeting analysis had been flawed. Their missiontheir physical needs (housing, etc.), advising became to precipitate the mass upheaval that them to take wives, and supervising their would trigger a world transformation.ideological remolding. Two years elapsed Proclaiming themselves the vanguard of global before the "golden eggs" emerged in public for revolution, they declared war on thethe first time, on 1 May 1972. Clad in business bourgeoisie, set about bombings and bank suits and dark, respectable ties, with badges of robberies, and sought to forge links with Kim Il Sung on their left lapels, they announced radical and revolutionary groups around the to a Japanese media delegation in world, a strategy that became essential for Pyongï¿½yang their embrace of North Korean survival as police pressure made it more and "Juche" ideology in place of their hitherto

4 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF simultaneous world revolution theory. Over pattern of threat, negotiation, release of time, they married, raised families, and led imprisoned members, payment of ransoms, and privileged, expatriate lives; they traveled the support, retraining, and integration of new extensively. The Japanese authorities now members into the organization. Much of their believe that they were involved in money energy was concentrated on trying to preserve laundering and in the abduction of Japanese their own organization. After Lod, JRA citizens from Japan and Europe in the late recruitment films and other propaganda made 1970s and early 1980s, most likely with a view bold reference to PFLP-sponsored training, and to recruiting the forces with which to carry to participation in the armed Palestinian forward a program of armed uprising in Japan. struggle, but whether the group actually participated in any Palestinian operations is Lebanon and the PFLP The Japanese Red Army unknown.

The second Red Army Faction group, later United Red Army (Rengo Sekigun) adopting the name Nihon Sekigun (Japanese Red Army, or JRA) slipped out of Japan in Amid mounting police pressure and tension, February 1971 to Lebanon, intent upon linking those Red Army Faction members who the Japanese and Palestinian struggles as part remained in Japan after the departure of the of global revolution. Joining with the Popular North Korean and Lebanese groups decided to Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), combine with another militant group, Keihin three of its members launched an attack on Ampo Kyoto (Tokyo-Yokohama Security Treaty Lydda (then Lod) Airport in Tel Aviv on 30 May Joint Struggle Committee), pooling money 1972. Twenty-six people, mostly Puerto Rican seized in bank robberies by the one with the tourists, were caught in the crossfire and cache of weapons built up by the other. killed; seventy-six others were wounded. Two of Ideologically, the Red Army Faction members the three Japanese activists committed suicide had been inclined toward the simultaneous immediately afterwards; the third, Okaï¿½moto world revolution ideas of Che Guevara, while Kozo, was captured and imprisoned. Between the Keihin (Tokyo-Yokohama) group was then and September 1977, JRA-affiliated groups oriented toward revolution in one country and were active in Dubai, Singapore, The Hague, influenced by Maoist, Cultural Revolution Kuala Lumï¿½pur, and Dacca, occupying radicalism.14 The fruit of the union was Rengo embassies, hijacking planes, robbing banks, Sekigun (United Red Army, or URA). The blowing up refineries. They sought to raise militants of URA planned to serve as the funds to further their broader objectives, to guerrillas of the Japanese revolution, secure the release of captured militants, and to coordinating their activities with those of their call attention to their international cause. comrades in North Korea and the Middle East Despite the international stage on which they as part of the global revolution. acted, the JRA faced a similar problem to that of their comrades in North Korea: how to The comrades of the new organization held a maintain an international revolutionarytraining campin the depths of the 1971-72 perspective in the specific circumstances of a winter at a mountain base in Gunma. Leaders local, in their case Palestinian, struggle. As the urged members to purify their revolutionary Yodo Group became adherents of North thoughts and to enhance unity through self- Korean-style revolutionary theory, so the Japan and group-criticism. The process spun out of Red Army narrowed its commitment tocontrol and became a violent and bloody purge, international revolution to the specifics of the marked by beatings, punishment, and torture; Palestinian cause.13 Their operations followed a some twelve members were killed.15 Having

5 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF raised police suspicion, members divided and were involved in the 1970s and 1980s North fled from one hideout to another. They crossed Korean abduction of Japanese citizens from into Nagano near Karuizawa where they Japan and Europe, and it seems likely that they entered the Asama Lodge and began what will face charges on that count as well as over developed into a ten-day siege, which was the "Yodo" hijacking itself.20 Their primary televised almost non-stop nationwide. Two concerns today are to defend their own actions, police officers were killed in the siege; the five try to minimize their prison terms, and protect survivors were jailed. One United Red Army their families. During their more than thirty leader committed suicide, the other, Nagata years of exile there is little to indicate that they Hiroko, explained her acts as "reactionary, made any contribution to the betterment of fascist error."16 She was found guilty and either North Korea or Japan, or to the analysis sentenced to death in 1982 (confirmed 1992). and understanding of the international As at date of writing, it has yet to be carried situation. out. Shigenobu Fusako, leader and public face of The horror of the Asama hut violence, while the JRA, and in the 1970s the best-known obvious, is compounded by the realization that public face of international terrorism (as it resulted from ordinary social processes, acts "Carlos" was to become in the 1980s and 1990s committed by plain ordinary people.17 In the and Osama Bin Laden thereafter), was arrested furnace of social isolation, fear of arrest and in November 2000. In March 2001 she formally insistence on fierce discipline, followers lost dissolved the group as she was put on trial for confidence in their own judgment. Unable to masterminding the Hague hostage incident oppose their leaders or the group as a whole, (1974), in which two police officers died, and since they thought of doubt as weakness, they for forging and using false passports. Admitting redoubled their efforts to prove theironly to passport-related charges, Shigenobu commitment and determination.18 The defends the JRA's Palestinian commitment as collective will supplanted individualappropriate in its time and context but conscience. In this they behaved indeed as an apologizes for the civilian casualties. The army, but like the late and unlamented Imperial infamous Lod Airport attack, and subsequent Japanese Army rather than any democratic, acts, were acts of war, she claims, legitimate as citizen-based army. part of the armed struggle for Palestine liberation and of the global struggle against The Perspective of Thirty Years capitalism and imperialism.21

All three groups emanating from the original Other JRA members are today either Red Army Faction ended in varying degrees of undergoing lengthy trials or have completed tragedy, isolation, and failure. time in prison. Their contribution to international revolution was limited in practice As of 2003, three members of the Yodo Group to the Lod Airport attack and generalized had died, two were on trial in Japan, and the support for the Palestinian cause. Okamoto, the remaining four, still living in Pyongyang, had only survivor of the Lod attack, after serving a opened negotiations over their desire to return three-year sentence in Lebanon (1997 to 2000), to Japan, even at the cost of inevitable trial and was granted political asylum there in prison terms.19 What, if any, role they had recognition of his participation in the played as adherents of Kim Il Sung Thought Palestinian resistance and of his having been over three decades is unclear. Japanesetortured in Israeli prisons. In May 2003, he authorities believe that they, or their wives, spoke of his wish to return home to Japan: "I

6 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF want to know how my old friends are doing measurable contribution to revolutionary there and I want to return to college again to theory or practice. Instead, its violent purges study biology."22 had the effect of alienating other Red Army members, large numbers of committed social Shigenobu's books, whether analyzing the activists, and the public at large. Theirs Palestine and Middle Eastern situation or her remains a cautionary tale of "reactionary, more recent ventures into autobiography, are fascist error" within a nominally leftist 23 widely read in Japan, but they offer only a movement. kind of naï¿½ve moralism rather than any sustained or original thinking about political For the Yodo Group, Shigenobu's Middle East structures and national or global systems. Her guerrillas of the JRA, and the URA, ideological commitment to the Palestinian cause seems to purity and correctness of line took precedence have been absolute, and to have included both over human life. This tendency was further goals and tactics, although she is not known to exaggerated as their isolation from society have taken part herself in any "field"deepened. Yet Red Army members never seem operations. However, her writing shows a to have thought of themselves as terrorists. In reflective and self-ï¿½critical awareness little their minds, they were revolutionaries, evident in the memoirs of her male comrades. honorable idealists committed to human "You cannot change society," she says, "without betterment. Over the thirty-five years since changing yourself."24 Her skills at organization their founding meetings, however, it is hard to and her pastoral concern for the members of see that they accomplished much in the way of her group have led Patricia Steinoff, the major human betterment, whether in the Middle East, Western critic of the Red Army, to label her a North Korea, or Japan itself. Misreading the corporate manager manquï¿½.25 When signs of 1969, they spent much of their lives in Shigenobu was arrested in November 2000, a pursuit of the chimera of world revolution. The blueprint for a new "people's revolutionary corpus of writing in which they offer their party," with a vaguely progressive and populist, analysis of global events and their reflections and not at all revolutionary flavor, was found on their own lives provides insights into the among her possessions.26 Her orientation personal tragedies that overwhelmed them, but seemed to have shifted from global revolution little into the dynamics of world history or the (in the early 1970s) to Palestinian revolution shifting structures of national political or and now, according to her daughter May, to the economic power. struggle against globalization, misinformation, materialism, monopolies, and exploitation: Some analysts, among them the influential "Seattle was the start. Seeing the way the independent Marxist critic Asada Akira, incline world is shifting, my mother and I stand united now to the view that the Red Army activists against the slogan ï¿½might is right.'"27 Neither were concerned not so much with serious the media nor, apparently, the prosecutors, political analysis and action as with nostalgic question her purity of purpose or integrity, but and romantic escape from reality. For Asada, the it is the moral, rather than political content of Red Army Faction at its peak of activity around her message, that is striking. 1970 was "subjectivist and romantic, either pursuing an illusory unity with the masses or The United Red Army leader Nagata Hiroko has seeking a quasi-erotic communality of its own." languished in a death cell since 1982. The URA Its macho, martial, male chauvinism helped had formed in the hope of combining,incline it toward violence and blocked it from simultaneously, world revolution withany understanding of or cooperation with other revolution in one country, but it made no social movements of the time.28 In the Japanese

7 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF case, this would have included broad-based Chinese classic stories, the Romance of the citizen movement such as the Beheiren (Peace Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin, by the in Vietnam) Committee, which flourished at this adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the central time. Asian expeditions of explorer Sven Hedin, and the world of Jules Verne. Hijack leader Tamiya While the core male leadership monopolized Takamaro was a fan of the manga character strategic positions in the organization, the "Tomorrow's Jo" and among his comrades the support network was predominantly female. hijack operation was informally known by that Although Shigenobu Fusako was to become the name.32 For the Red Army men, action was person most recognized as the JRA leader, both based on an idealized sense of social justice internationally and within Japan, she and other and morality and driven by a sense of women were little appreciated by theiradventure rather than by serious analytic comrades. The comments about her by Shiomi understanding of history. Even while rejecting Takaya, former Red Army Faction chairman their times, they were its children. who was jailed from 1970 to 1989 for his role in the JRA's early activities, compare bleakly with Aum Shinrikyo ï¿½ Aum Supreme Truth the warmth of recollection of the camaraderie (1987-2000) he clearly shared with male comrades. He acknowledged her commitment, drive, and Where the Red Army set about implementing a "magical" capacity for administrative work, plan for world revolution, Aum initially information gathering, and fund raising, but withdrew from society in order to pursue saw her primarily in a support role.29 Only personal enlightenment, and only later decades later did he ruefully concede her challenged the state in an attempt to supplant considerable talent for organization andit. Like the Red Army activists of two decades leadership: after almost thirty years heearlier, the Aum leaders were ready to use admitted, "You could say I underestimated her violent means to serve what they believed to be talents."30 a superior purpose.

A similar, perhaps even more severe, criticism Under the leadership of Shoko Asahara, the is that the JRA's revolutionary commitment was Guru, the Aum Supreme Truth cult contested fundamentally a pose disguising a commitment the 1990 general election on an essentially to traditional values. According to Shiomi, the religious platform. Some twenty-five candidates Red Army Faction members were romantics in ran under their Sanskrit holy names, dressed in the peculiar Japanese vein of traditional white, wearing elephant masks representing nationalist self-sacrifice: "At the heart of the the Hindu god Ganesh ("Asahara masks"), Red Army Faction is romanticism. I can say of chanting religious hymns or the name of the myself that I have a positive sort ofGuru, and warning of apocï¿½alypse. When all romanticism and purity of spirit. The Red Army of them failed dismally, frustration and anger Faction shared an implicitly Japanese sense of spread, producing a change in tactics, a romanticism and spirit of self-sacrifice that growing commitment to Armageddon and they held in common with the loyalists in the intensification of discipline, through internal last days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the pressures such as sleep deprivation, beatings, prewar right-wing officer training schools and and isolation in cages. Although the coming the special attack kamikaze units."31 Shiomi gigantic struggle might involve attacks by ABC lists classic moral tales of social justice and (atomic, biological, or chemical) weapons, adventure as the formative literary influences physical and spiritual preparation could confer on his youth. He was inspired or excited by the immunity.

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When the rigors of the training caused the first internationalize, enjoying considerably more accidental fatalities, the deaths were covered success at this than did the Red Army, which up. These were followed by the harassment was already a hunted, renegade organization and, in due course, murder of persons who when it began its overseas mission. Aum "threatened" the cult, beginning with a lawyer developed branches in Russia,34 Germany, the who was investigating it. Later, members seen United States, and Sri Lanka, and it made a to be "failing" or having second thoughts about brief foray into Australia.35 Its Internet sites their commitment to the cult were notwere available in Japanese, Russian, and reintegrated but killed. Over time, the bodies of English.36 Its wealth, estimated in 1995 at an unknown number of people, likely between between $300 million and $1 billion, derived forty and fifty, were disposed of in giant from the savings that new members turned incinerating microwave ovens. over to the cult, from tax-exempt businesses staffed by cult members, and from fraud and Asahara came to believe that in order to save extortion.37 Japan, he had no choice but to destroy the national government and to set up an Aum Close attention was paid to organization and dictatorship. To achieve this aim, he had to logistics. The cult set about the mass prepare a chemical and biological arsenal. production of Russian AK-47 (Kalashnikov) Armageddon would be the means to his victory. rifles, purchased a large helicopter (for air Certain that the apocalypse was coming, delivery of chemical weapons), and forged links Asahara's cult thought at first to ensure with sections of the Japanese Self-Defense survival through religion, but then shifted Forces. In their scientific laboratories, Aum had gradually, in 1988-89, from preparing for the equipment capable of cultivating and testing survival of people outside the group to the biological weapons on a large scale, including survival only of the "chosen," and finally, in botulism and sarin, the World War I nerve gas. 1994, to "survival through combat." In order to In 1992, Asahara led a 40-man team to Zaire, survive Armageddon they had to become possibly in an attempt to secure samples of "superhuman." The date of Armageddon was Ebola virus for propagation.38 On a number of first set as 1999, then moved forward to 1997, occasions in the early 1990s, Asahara ordered and finally to 1995. When the city of Kobe was the use of these weapons against strategic partly destroyed by an earthquake in January state targets in Japan, to strike at enemies and 1995, Asahara interpreted the catastrophe as create disasters that would confirm his the beginning of Armageddon; he also believed prophesies. The Japanese parliament was that the event might have been caused by a ineffectually attacked in April 1990 with botulin U.S. "earthquake machine." toxin aerosol, and the wedding of the crown prince in June 1993 was targeted (but not As the final, cataclysmic struggle loomed, Aum actually attacked). Aum reportedly also developed a quasi-governmental system with its attempted to spray anthrax spores from the own structures mirroring those of Japan's state roof of a building in Tokyo later that month. and in direct opposition to it. Asahara himself There were no casualties from any of these was "shinsei hoo" (sacred master of the law, in attacks.39 effect emperor), and he was surrounded by ministries of Construction, Health and Welfare, Unlike the Red Army militants, Asahara's Aum Household Agency of Master of the Law, Home developed for a long time in relative immunity Affairs, etc.33 from police attention, benefiting from the protection it enjoyed as a religious Aum also made considerable efforts toorganization. Yet its inner, religious orientation

9 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF steadily became secularized. After the Japanese them relatively minor.41 state, the United States was Aum's second target; the world Jewish community its third, After the attack, police raided the cult's along with the Freemasons. Aum claimed that facilities nationwide and dismantled the the Jews had taken advantage of Japan's organization. Hundreds of cult members were devastation after World War II as a step in their rounded up, but it was nearly two months conspiracy to achieve total world domination. before Asahara himself was arrested, on 16 The United States was seen as controlled by May. In the intervening weeks, the cult carried Jewish capital, which also directed theout further attacks, including the shooting of Freemasons, while the Freemasons were the Tokyo police commissioner (who survived) manipulating the United Nations to achieve and an abortive attack with an improvised universal control. Jews were accused of the cyanide gas generator at a Tokyo train station. massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Cambodia. The cult's minister of science and technology, In 1992, a vast shadowy power ï¿½ variously Murai Hideo, was stabbed to death on the identified as Japan, the United States, and a street, in front of TV cameras, shortly after the conspiracy of Jews, Freemasons, the British subway attack. royal family, and rival Japanese religions ï¿½ was expected to launch a third world war.40 The most authoritative study of Aum (Religious Asahara thought it likely that Japan would be Violence in Contemporary Japan, by Ian Reader) attacked by the United States, which he reads Asahara's late sermons as indicative of "a identified with "the Beast" in the Book of desperate and destructive mood rather than the Revelation. The United States and the West, in focused calculations of an evil genius plotting to general, were accused of spreading rampant take over the world." "We are living, he materialism and internationalism, which were [Asahara] declared, in the Kali Yuga, the final the root of Japan's problems. era in Hindu thought, in which evil karma abounds and in which all who dwell in this world Early in 1994 Asahara accused the United are dragged spiritually downwards." In such an States of masterminding and carrying out a era, Reader contends, there could be little series of chemical attacks on himself and on prospect of salvation. Allegations of conspiracy Aum facilities in Japan. Aum insisted that the and paranoia about spies, in the years leading to sect was not the producer of sarin gas, but 1995, are indicative of "a process of mental rather its victim, and that Japanese and disturbance and instability, and of a slide American aircraft were swooping low over their towards despair."42 Aum's crimes "were all ad compound to spray it with gas. Only in early hoc and reactive outbursts of violence directed 1995, on the eve of the sarin gas attack in the against individual enemies.ï¿½The attacks on Tokyo subway, did the Tokyo Metropolitan the general public were also carried out to Police begin to investigate Aum seriously. prevent something happening," not to initiate a Aum's response to the investigation was the program.43 gas attack on 20 March. Planned and executed clumsily, using only a small batch of low-grade Although stripped of its legal status and tax sarin that was released from plastic bags by a privileges as a religious organization in 1995, prod with the steel tip of an umbrella, the Aum Shinrikyo revived its activities in early attack was less successful than initially feared, 1997 after the government concluded that but it profoundly shocked the nation and the surveillance should continue, but that the world. Twelve people died, fifty-four were organization was no longer a threat requiring critically injured, and about one thousand total suppression. The government tried sustained various types of injuries, most of repeatedly from 1997 onwards to invoke the

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1952 Anti-Subversive Activities Law to outlaw terror had been reported.49 Aum, but the semipublic Public Security Examination Commission refused to make the The trial of Asahara Shoko on charges relating necessary determination. Specific legislation to twenty-seven murders, including the subway (needing to be renewed every five years) was killings, was conducted at the Tokyo District therefore passed in 1999, under which the Court from April 1996 to November 2003. Public Security Investigation Agency (PISA) Asahara remained silent throughout, save for was commissioned to monitor and control Aum occasional, mostly incomprehensible mumbling. as a group that had been involved inHis trial ended with prosecutorsdescribing him indiscriminate mass murder over the previous as "the most vicious criminal in our country's decade. history" and demanding the death sentence. A ruling is expected early in 2004.50 Nine Of ten thousand Aum followers in 1995, one leading members of the cult had already been thousand were full-time dedicated "monks" sentenced to death and six to life between twenty and thirty years of age. Some imprisonment, but appeals may prolong the 400 Aum disciples were arrested in the ensuing proceedings for a good many years to come.51 crackdown; 155 resumed their membership and 44 activities after being released. In February Conclusion 2000 Aum changed its name to Aleph. The organization now insists that it is purely By the generally agreed upon understanding of religious in character. It denounces all forms of the word, both the Red Army and Aum qualify violence, apologizes for the horrors committed for designation as terrorist.52 They employed under Asahara (whom it describes as "a kind of violence against both state and non-state genius in meditation" whose acts, however, it targets in an attempt to coerce governments could not approve of), and promises four billion and societies to adopt their programs. yen (ca. US$40 million) in compensation for the Bassiouni's psychological profile of the terrorist Aum victims.45 During 2002, 103 locations in seems apt: heightened perception of oppressive fifteen prefectures were searched and twenty conditions, real or presumed; firm conviction in followers arrested.46 By December 2002 Aleph's the possibility of modifying them; belief that nationwide membership was reportedly 1,650, conditions cannot be ameliorated peacefully of whom 650 were live-in. This figure dropped and that it is therefore necessary to resort to in February 2003 to 1,194, of whom 522 were violence in order for change to take place; live-in. The average age of members is thirty- awareness that violent action may not five, and few younger people seem to be necessarily be successful in effecting social or joining.47 Businesses and stores associated with political change, accompanied by the belief that the organization continue to earn billions of yen it is sufficient to set the stage for such desired each year, and the organization still owns change; and the belief that their goals (December 2002) twenty-eight compounds in ultimately justify the casualties caused by their eighteen Japanese prefectures for religious action. Such a mind-set leads to deliberate training, missionary work, and otherefforts to create and exploit a climate of fear in operations. Membership in Aum's Russian order to publicize the cause widely and to branch, about thirty thousand in 1995, was coerce their target into submission. estimated by the Japanese authorities in 2003 to be down to three hundred.48 In 2003, Fred Halliday has drawn a typology of five surveillance was ordered for a further three phases in the evolution of post-ï¿½1945 terror: years, although the attitude of the sect was successful struggles for independence against described as "cooperative" and no signs of colonial states (as in Kenya and Algeria);

11 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF unsuccessful but ongoing nationalistindiscriminate violence against movements (as in Palestine or the Spanish enemies.ï¿½Terrorists, as practitioners of Basque region); leftist campaigns for domestic indiscriminate and impermissible violence, are revolutionary political and social change (as in prominent among both those who are ultimate Latin America, Italy, the United States, and outsiders and those who are our biggest Japan, with the Tupaï¿½maros, Red Brigades, winners. (emphasis added)54 Weatherï¿½men, and Red Army respectively); right-ï¿½wing domestic campaigns of terror, as The Red Army and Aum members are in the 1970s and 1980s in France and Italy; and undoubtedly losers (in Falk's sense), but it is as the religiously inspired terrorism of the 1980s, necessary, and even more difficult, to bring mostly in Muslim countries.53 While Japan's Red state terrorist winners to account as it is to Army fits in the third of these categories, the punish terrorist acts committed by individuals Aum Supreme Truth cult, with its commitment or groups. to violent means to achieve religious and political ends (the construction of an essentially The Japanese state deplores terrorism in secular nation state), would seem to combine general and is a committed supporter of elements from Halliday's third and fifthGeorge W. Bush's "war on terrorism." categories and therefore to warrant a category However, its concept of "terror" is highly of its own. specific. The Japanese state is sensitive to certain kinds of "state terror," such as the However, as Halliday himself notes, although abduction of its citizens in the 1970s and 1980s most contemporary usage refers only to acts of by North Korea, but not to others, especially terror committed against governments, much those of the United States in relation to violence is committed by states, and the term Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Prime Minister "state terrorism" has deep historical roots. Koizumi grieves for the civilian victims of the States, and those who act for them, can and do September 11 attack on the United States, but terrorize their own citizens along with those of not for the far greater number of equally other states, and should be subject to criminal innocent civilian victims of the Afghan and Iraq liability for their actions. Acts of aggression, wars. Furthermore, while the Japanese including genocide or the bombing of civilians government today pledges full support for the or the deliberate destruction of civiliancampaign against "terror," its leaders, infrastructure, are war crimes committed by including Koizumi, continue to endorse Japan's states that are also acts of terror. Weapons of own suicide bombers, the kamikaze of World mass destruction ï¿½ nuclear weapons,War II ï¿½ prominent progenitors of the especially ï¿½ are all by definition terror modern "terrorist."55 While the Imperial weapons. Richard Falk offers a broad, if also Japanese Army committed terrorist acts on a sobering, definition: "Terrorism designates any vast scale across Asia and caused the deaths of type of political violence that lacks an adequate millions, it still occupies a semi-sacrosanct moral and legal justification, regardless of position in Japanese society, and not one single whether the actor is a revolutionary group or a member has ever been punished for any government." He adds, atrocity committed in the name of the emperor. No such exemption would be enjoyed by the What is disturbing about the phenomenon of militants of the Red Army or the visionaries of terrorism is its normality within our own Aum. culture. From this perspective, we are virtually all terrorists, at least in the passive sense of The official abhorrence of terror and terrorism endorsing or at least acquiescing inin Japan is also selective in the sense that the

12 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF phenomenon of right-wing terror isincluding killing. Trimmed to its core logic, downplayed, although it is very real in the however, this is not an unfamiliar position, nor everyday life of people. A major political is it confined to left-wing or religious assassination in 1960 and an attempted coup movements. It is the same logic and morality d'ï¿½tat in 1970 were right-wing acts of as now drives the global superpower, the political violence against the left. Other cases United States, whose president also speaks in of intimidation, violence, and assassination of terms of good vs. evil and justifies whatever political or media figures by right-wing groups steps, including setting aside international law are not uncommon ï¿½ the murder of an Asahi and treaties and waging preemptive war, in his Shimbun journalist in Nishinomiya City in insistence that his cause is absolutely just and 1987, the attempted assassination of the mayor good. Although the terror discourse tends to of Nagasaki in 1990, and the murder of a be appropriated by states to designate their prominent opposition politician in 2002 being non-state enemies, the fact is that among the best-known cases. In September indiscriminate violence in the hands of 2002, the governor of Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro, irresponsible groups who believe firmly that declared that it was perfectly understandable they are right and good is the problem, that a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official who whether the party concerned is backed by a had been centrally involved in negotiations state or not. At a deep level, the JRA and with North Korea should be the subject of an Asahara, the ultimate "outsiders" (in Richard attempted bomb attack. Political leaders issued Falk's characterization) share crucial mild statements distancing themselves from his assumptions and values with George W. Bush, view, but shied away from calling it what it the presumed "winner." was: a high-level endorsement of terrorism.56 While the word "terror is reserved for non- Having crushed and defeated both the Red ï¿½state-ï¿½backed extremist groups, the fact Army and Aum, the Japanese state's formula for is that not only this Foreign Ministry official addressing terror combines vigorous proactive but also others challenging the unspoken and punitive tactics with preemption. While consensus of Japanese politics have faced, and trials grind on in the courts and prosecutors fill continue to face, the threat or reality of their files with evidence for more trials to violence.57 come, a network of surveillance and control is woven over the society in a bid to prevent any Both the Red Army and the Aum Supreme such groups emerging again in future. The Truth cult began as utopian and idealistic, yet "hatred and mass hysteria" generated by Red the one is best remembered for the Yodo Army and Aum violence feed a fear and hijacking and the Asama Lodge siege and the paranoia, and a desire for increased public other for the gas attack in the Tokyo subway. safety.58 Like the U.S. state, which since As their visionary goals were frustrated, both September 11 has concentrated on groups lost their grip on reality and turned identification, surveillance, and when adjudged inwards into a besieged and self-constructed necessary the preventive detention of the world in which those outside the movement"other" within, the Japanese state has been were unworthy while those inside ablewere to pass legislation unthinkable at any time transformed into heroic or sacred warriors.in the past, extending the prerogatives of state They came to think in terms of a global axis,power to deal with "emergencies" and to create with good confronting evil, in which "our" side files on citizens.59 The bureaucratic solution, is blessed by divine support and the other ishowever, may not always be the best solution. unambiguously evil, and to believe "our" cause After all, it was the narrowing of the frame of so important that it justifies any means ï¿½legitimate citizen activity and social meaning in

13 2 | 6 | 0 APJ | JF the postwar decades to obedience,32-35. consumption, and profit that nurtured the Red Army and Aum. Attempting to neutralize such 4. See Gavan McCormack, "The Student Left in groups now through the adoption of the Japan," New Left Review, no. 65 (January- apparatus of "citizen surveillance,February 1971): 37-53. institutionalized harassment, and state- 60 5. Peter J. Katzenstein and Tsujinaka Yutaka, sponsored discrimination" might have the Defending the Japanese State: Structures, opposite effect ï¿½ isolating and spurring them Norms and the Political Responses to Terrorism into action. Patricia Steinhoff goes so far as to and Violent Social Protest in the 1970s and say that "labeling [as extremist or terrorist] 1980s (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University East may have co-opted the majority, but it made the Asia Program, 1991), 20. minority more radical. In this sense, it is fair to say that government actions have created 6. Even after the subway attack, the Dalai terrorism and other forms of urban guerrilla Lama referred to Asahara as "my friend, but 61 activity." not necessarily a perfect one." David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of Neither the Red Army nor Aum was inherently the World (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996), "evil." One saw itself as a unit in an 260. See also, Ian Reader, Religious Violence in international war that would bring about a Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum better world, the other as the last hope of a Shinriï¿½kyo (Honolulu: University of Hawaii beleaguered humanity. While in the end the Press, 2000), 68. Japanese state determined it had no alternative but to crush and punish members of both 7. Reader, Religious Violence, 61. groups, the fact that it came to that meant that the state had already failed. Instead of driving 8. Ibid., 121-23. out and then crushing the groups, a more dynamic and open civil society might have 9. M. Cherif Bassiouni, Legal Responses to engaged with them and found channels for the International Terrorism: U.S. Procedural constructive expression of their idealism. Aspects (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Martinus Nijhoof, 1987), xxx-xxxiii.

Notes 10. For a chronology of the student movement, see Katzenstein and Tsujinaka, Defending the Japanese State, 16-18, 22-23. For a short, more 1. In the age of globalization, this isup-to-date analysis, with bibliography, see increasingly common practice. See Marlies Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Student Protest in the Glasius, Mary Kaldor, and Helmut Anheier, 1960s," Social Science Japan, March 1999, 3-6. eds., Global Civil Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), iii-iv. 11. On the Cuba venture, see Shiomi Takaya, Sekigun-ha shimatsu ki, Moto gicho ga kataru 2. Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism 40 nen [The Red Army put in perspective: 40 (Boston: Little Brown, 1977). years, as told by its former chairman] (Tokyo: Sairyuusha, 2003), 106. 3. A flurry of conferences and publications marked the fiftieth anniversary of these failed 12. For details, see McCormack, "The Student efforts. For a brief review, see Iwadare Hiroshi, Left in Japan," 47. "Ima naze sakano 50 nendai gakusei undo no kaiko to kensho," Shukan kinyobi, 26 July 2002, 13. William R. Farrell, Blood and Rage: The

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Story of the Japanese Red Army (Lexington, TV's Sekigun Jiken no Onnatachi [The women Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), 158. of the Red Army incidents], broadcast 24 December 2002. 14. Kino Yasushi, Asama sanso jiken no shinjitsu (Tokyo: Kawade Shinsha Shobo, 21. Shigenobu Fusako, "Nihon sekigun wa nani 2000), 9-10. o kangaete ita no ka," in Sekigun ï¿½ Red Army, 1969-2001 [Kawade yume mukku, 15. Nagata Hiroko, "Jiko hihan ï¿½ Rengo Bungei bessatsu], ed. Abe Harumasa (Tokyo: Sekigun no ayamachi o kurikaesanai tame ni," Kawade ShobÅ Shinsha, 2001), 2-8. part 2, Impakushon, no. 20 (30 October 1982): 104-119, at 104. Also Kino, Asama sansÅ jiken 22. "Seventies-era Terrorist Who Killed Dozens no shinjitsu, 314-16, and for a sensitiveWants to Come Home, Go to College," Japan portrait, see Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Three Times, 8 May 2003. Women Who Loved the Left: Radical Women Leaders in the Japanese Red Army," in Re- 23. See the following works by Shigenobu imaging Japanese Women, ed. Anne E.Fusako: Waga ai waga kakumei [My love, my Imamura (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University revolution] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974); Beiruto of California Press, 1996). 1982 nen natsu [Beirut, summer of 1982] (Tokyo: Hanashi no tokushu, 1984); Daichi ni 16. Nagata, "Jiko hihan," 106. mimi o tsukereba Nihon no oto ga suru [If you put your ear to the ground Japan can be heard] 17. Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Managerial Style in (Unita Shoho [publisher] and Aki Shobo the Japanese Red Army," Journal of Asian [distributor], 1984); and, most recently, Ringo Studies 48, no. 4 (November 1989): 724-740, at no ki no shita de anata o umo to kimeta 735. [Beneath the apple tree I decided to give birth 18. Other groups were also caught in this spiral to you] (Tokyo: Gentosha, 2001). around the same time, notably the East Asian 24. Shigenobu, Ringo no ki no shita de anata o Anti-Japanese Armed Front (EAAJAF). The EAAJAF moved from bombing monuments and umo to kimeta, 71. symbols of the emperor system and of Japanese 25. Steinhoff, "Managerial Style in the colonialism to planning an attack on the person Japanese Red Army," 733. of the emperor himself. Plans went awry and the bomb was instead detonated at the 26. Japan Times, 19 November 2000. headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, killing 8 and injuring 576 people. Two death 27. Ibid. 14 July 2001. sentences and one life sentence related to this incident were handed down and then confirmed 28. Asada Akira, "A Left within the Place of in 1987. Three group members were "sprung" Nothingness," New Left Review, no. 5 from prison in 1975 and 1977; two of them (September-October 2000): 15-40, at 19. remain at large. 29. Shiomi, Sekigun-ha shimatsu ki, 32-6. 19. "Yodogo jiken: Menba 4 nin ga kikoku tetsuzuki," Mainichi shimbun, 9 July 2002. 30. Ibid., 56

20. Several television documentaries, which 31. Ibid. 191-92. draw extensively on police intelligence, were produced in 2002 and 2003, including Nihon 32. Ibid.

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33. See table in D.W. Brackett, Holy Terror: 48. Ibid., 12 April 2003. Armageddon in Tokyo (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1996), 104. 49. Kiyotada Iwata, "Aum Kept under Watch ï¿½ and at Arm's Length," Asahi Online, 22 34. Kaplan and Marshall, The Cult at the End of February 2003. the World, 69-76, 106ff., 266ff., 191-93; Brackett, Holy Terror, 92ff. 50. "The Long Wait," Asahi shimbun, 23 April 2003. 35. Amy E. Smithson, "Rethinking the Lessons of Tokyo" in Ataxia: The Chemical and51. The trial schedule is posted on the Aleph website: www.aleph.to/. Biological Terror Threat and the US Response, ed. Amy E. Smithson and Leslie-Anne Levy, 52. The Policy Working Group on the United Henry L. Stimson Center, Report no. 35 Nations and Terrorism (2002) did not make any (October 2000): 83-4. Available atformal definition but stated that terrorism was www.stimson.org/cbw/pdf/atxchapter3.pdf. "essentially a political actï¿½meant to inflict dramatic and deadly injury on civilians and to 36. Ely Karmon, The Anti-Semitism of Japan's create an atmosphere of fear, generally for a Aum Shinrikyo: A Dangerous Revival. Available political or ideological (whether secular or at religious) purpose." See www.ict.org.il/articles/aum_anitsemitism.htm. www.un.org/terrorism/a57273.htm.

37. Ibid. 53. Fred Halliday, "Terrorism," Global Policy Forum ï¿½ WTC: The Crisis, May 2001; 38. Smithson, "Rethinking the Lessons of www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/terrorism/2510t.htm. Tokyo," 83-4. 54. Richard Falk, Revolutionaries and 39. Karmon, The Anti-Semitism of Japan's Aum Functionaries: The Dual Face of Terrorism Shinrikyo. (New York: Dutton, 1988), cited in Jan Oberg, "11 Things to Remember on September 11," 40. Japan has 2,512 Freemasons, almost all of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future them foreigners, and fewer than one thousand Research, 11 September 2003; Jews. (Ibid.) www.transnational.org/pressinf/2003/pf186_1 1ThingsOnSept 11.html. 41. Smithson, "Rethinking the Lessons of Tokyo," 106. 55. On Koizumi's tears over the Japanese kamikaze at the "Tokkotai Heiwa Kinenï¿½kan" 42. Reader, Religious Violence, 202-3. [Special Attack Force Peace Memorial Hall] at Chiran in Kyushu in February 2002, see 43. Ibid., 218. Terashima Jitsuro, "Kitai sareru shidoshazo 44. Karmon, The Anti-Semitism of Japan's Aum saiko," Sekai, Sepï¿½tember 2002, 55-57, at 57. Shinrikyo. Some five thousand allied sailors were killed by kamikaze attacks in the Pacific and East China 45. Aleph website: www.aleph.to/. Sea areas. Murray Sayle, "The Kamï¿½iï¿½kazes Rise Again," The Atlantic 46. Japan Times, 12 April 2003. Monthly, March 2001; www.theatlantic.com/isï¿½sues/2001/03/sayle.h 47. Ibid., 23 April 2003 tm.

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56. Editorial, "Ishihara's Latest Furor," Asahi 208. shimbun, 12 September 2003.

57. For a recent case, concerning the Women's Note: This is a text-only version of an article International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial published in the March 2004 issue of Critical of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, convened Asian Studies (vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 91-112). The in Tokyo in December 2000, whichcomplete article (in typeset form, with subsequently found Emperor Hirohito, among photographs) is available at the Taylor and others, guilty of war crimes, see Takahashi Francis website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals. Tetsuya (in discussion with Henmi Yo),Meredith Box is a graduate student in "Watakuï¿½shiï¿½tachi wa dono yo na jidai ni anthropology at the Australian National ikite iru ka," Sekai, September 2002, 40-54, at University (Canberra). Her research focuses on pre-war Japanese youth organizations, 45. particularly the social and personal processes 58. Tatsuya Mori, director of twoby which individuals select and internalize documentaries on Aum: "A" and "A2," quoted in social values and myth. Formerly a lecturer in Eric Johnston, "Aum Bred Social Cult of Fear, Japanese language and culture, she runs a Passion for Security," Japan Times, 30 October Japanese translation and interpreting service in 2003. Tokyo and Canberra. Email: [email protected]. 59. On the National Resident Registry Network Gavan McCormack is professor in the Research set up in August 2002 to centralize and School of Pacific and Asian Studies at facilitate government access to personal data Australian National University and visiting on all citizens (organized according to 11-digit professor at International Christian University individual numbers), see articles in Japan in Tokyo. His recent books includeThe Times, 6 and 8 August 2002, and the Japanese Emptiness of Japanese Affluenceand, with website www.nttpc.info/Help/1253.html. Glenn Hook, Japan's Contested Constitution. 60. Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Three Paths to His Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophewas Enlightenment about Aum Shinrikyo," Journal published in 2004. Email: [email protected]. of Japanese Studies 27, no. 1 (2001): 143-52, at 150. Their Bibliography: Terror in Japan 61. Patricia G. Steinhoff, "Student Conflict," in Conflict in Japan, ed. Ellis S. Krauss, Thomas P. Is available at http://www.bcasnet.org Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), 174-213, at Posted at Japan Focus on June 15, 2004.

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