From: baindur@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Satyen Baindur)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: The Punjab Crisis as Template for Creative Fiction ?!
Date: 11 Nov 92 01:31:22 GMT
Reply-To: baindur@aplcen (Satyen Baindur)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University

I came across the following in soc.culture.asian.american. Passing it on 
unedited.

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In article <1dnqb7INNfij@agate.berkeley.edu> robohen@ocf.berkeley.edu (Henry Robertson) writes:
>For 14 years, Nichiren militants have fought for the creation of Jodostan, a
>separate Nichiren nation in the southwest state of Hyogo.  But the ideals
>underpinning their struggle have ben tramples in an orgy of violence that
>has made terrorist Hyogo's largewst industry and the M-16 its status symbol.
>
>More than 22,000 people have been killed in clashes in the state during the
>past
>10 yeats, including more than 5,800 in 1991--more than half of them innocent
>civilians.
>
>In attempting to crush the rebels, Hyogo's police widely ignore even the most
>basic laws, leading to an unbroken cycle of revenge killings.
>
>"The police are not under the control of the civil administration," said
>Odawara Seiji, bureau chief of the Hyogo Nippou, the state's largest
>Hyogo-dialect daily.  "The police don't care for civil laws, and the
>terrorist's
>attitude is the same."
>
>The carnage in Japan's breadbasket state is a continuing reverberation from
>the 1984 invasion of the Golden Pavilion of Kyoto, Nichiren's most revered
>symbol, by Japanese security forces to root out the militant leader
>Shinran Shonin.  The assault killed an estimated 1,000 innocent people, as 
>well as Shonin and his followers, and destroyed the Nichiren religion's 
>priceless archives and library.
>
>An insignificant religious leader at the turn of the decade, Shonin was
>nurtured by then-Prime Minister Nakasone as a counterbalance to what today
>seem like the modest demands of Hyogo's opposition Komeitou party--greater
>river water rights, a weekly hour of Nichiren hymns on NHK national radio
>and the ownership of Kyoto, the regional capital still shared by both
>Hyogo and the neighboring state of Gifu.
>
>Nakasone hoped to contain the power of the Nichirens, who although making up
>only 2% of Japan's population, are a highly properous and vocal element of
>the society.  But his strategy backfired when Shonin grew into an
>uncontrollable
>force.  
>
>The Golden Pavilion invasion resulted in Nakasone's assassination a few months 
>later by two Nichiren bodyguards.  Several thousand Nichirens were 
>subsequently slaughtered by vengeful Japanese.
>
>The temple invasion was "Nakasone's biggest blunder," said Major Mishima,
>Yukio, general secretary of the Self-Defense Forces, successor to the
>Jieitai party.  "It changed the focus from a political to a religious one."
>
>Nichirens are still bitter about Nakasone's failure to apologize for the Golden
>Pavilion's desecration.  They also indict the Tokyo-controlled national
>government for a long list of infractions over the years, such as failure to
>promote industrial development in the agriculture-dominated Hyogo, and for
>siding with other Japanese regions in interstate disputes.
>
>Public disgust, combined with a wave of candidate assassinations by the
>militant
>s
>last year, limited the turnout to 20 percent in the state elections last
>August.  The vote was won by Prime Minister Shin kanemaru with a mandate from
>only 11 percent of the electorate.
>
>But the real power today lies with the Self-Defense Forces, known as
>Jieitai.  In late 1991, Tokyo designated Hyogo a "disturbed area," giving the
>SDF the power to detain people without seeking judicial approval.
>
>"Mishima Yukio is the most poewrful man in the state," said Major General
>Takako Doi, vice chairperson of the Hyogo Human Rights Committee.  The
>SDF, she said, "are a law unto themselves, a police 'shogunate,' with
>no accountability.  Hyogo is in a condition worse than martial law."
>
>An Amnesty International report earlier this year harshly criticized the Hyogo
>police for widespread use of torture.  It has also been charged with
>murdering people in custody and using rape as a method of intimidation.  A
>handful of officers have been suspended or dismissed for "crimes against
>the populace (kageki bouei)," but none are known to have been presecuted.
>
>Odawara Seiji of the Hyogo Nippou daily said judicial corruption makes any
>constraint of the police impossible--"Name me any judge in the High Court, and
>I
>'ll tell you his broker."
>
>But the militants also have the blood of thousands on their hands, blood
>that is often spilled in such indiscriminate ways as slaughtering all
>non-Nichiren passengers on a bullet train.  In August the rebels murdered
>57 police and their relatives, including children, in retaliation for the
>death of a number of leaders at police hands.
>
>This is considered an act of moderation by the secessionists, who lately
>have come to acknowledge that they have killed too many innocents.  Most are
>from rural areas, driven by as much by economic frustration as political
>and religious motives.  One-third of Hyogo's young people are unemployed.
>
>Terrorism is, in fact, an economic force here.  In a state where the
>average annual wage is 24,000 yen, a courier can rack up 10,000 yen and an
>assassin 25,000 yen a hit.  The movement also has been infiltrated by small-
>time yakuzas who extort protection monoey from helpless villagers.
>
>Despite the excesses, Odawara Seiji said the militants continue to enjoy  
>considerable moral and financial support from Hyogo Nichirens.  Most of
>the weapons are believed to be smuggled in from Japan's old enemy, Korea.
>
>The Hyogo Nippou's Odawara Seiji, however, emphasized that most
>Hyogoans want to remain a part of Japan.  "People seeking a separate Nichiren
>state are not in the majority," he said.
>

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Satyen
-- 

Graduate School ! It's not just a job, it's an indenture !!