From: robohen@ocf.berkeley.edu (Henry Robertson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: BATTLE FOR NICHIREN STATE RAGES OUT OF CONTROL IN HYOGO
Date: 10 Nov 1992 01:30:20 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: headcrash.berkeley.edu

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 past10 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'sattitude 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 uncontrollableforce.  

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 militants
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.

Odawara