From: tueda@sco.COM (Takehiro Ueda)
Subject: Re: BATTLE FOR NICHIREN NATION RAGES OUT OF CONTROL IN JAPAN
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 01:29:17 GMT


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.
!


Hey, what is this ? Is this a fiction ? Of course, it is. Why won't the person 
who posted this please say "this is a fiction" just in case ? I'm afraid that 
some American friends who read this may take it seriously. I was born in Hyogo
and had lived there for 26 years until 1991 but I've never heard of this ;-)
Anyway this is a pretty good fiction. I enjoyed this. 

Thanks,
Take Ueda