SNA (Tokyo) — When former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi shaped a bond within the mid-Nineteen Sixties with Unification Church founder Solar Myung Moon over their shared anti-communist views, little did he know that he was sowing the seeds that might ultimately take the lifetime of his beloved grandson, Shinzo Abe.
It has been solely a matter of hours since an unemployed resident of Nara metropolis, Tetsuya Yamagami, shot and killed Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, and plenty of particulars will nonetheless should be fleshed out by journalists and historians, however the broad image has come into focus, and that is an preliminary try to relate the fundamental story.
After his premiership of 1957-1960, former Class A Struggle Prison Nobusuke Kishi was a dissatisfied man. His successors as prime minister, Hayato Ikeda and Eisaku Sato, although they had been shut colleagues, had deserted his makes an attempt to revise the pacifist Article 9 of the Structure and had slammed the brakes on remilitarization efforts, understanding clearly that most people would merely not have it, and additional initiatives could lead on the Liberal Democratic Occasion (LDP) to lose energy on the poll field.
Kishi was embittered about being pushed out of workplace after solely three years, and he blamed it totally on communists.
When Kishi paid a go to to Washington DC in October 1970 and met with President Richard Nixon and Nationwide Safety Advisor Henry Kissinger, he was quoted by the official memorandum as follows: “Mr. Kishi then commented that computerized extension of the Safety Treaty had been completed easily and with little or no opposition on the a part of the Japanese individuals in comparison with ten years in the past, when the Crimson Chinese language had stirred up the emotions of the Japanese.”
In Kishi’s view, “Crimson Chinese language” had been the driving force behind the anti-Safety Treaty protests of 1960 which had pressured him out.
It’s maybe not so stunning, then, that when Kishi was launched to Unification Church founder Solar Myung Moon about 5 years later, their shared hardline anti-communist views allowed them to hit it off, and the connection would endure for generations.
To date, historians and public information give us solely glimpses of what occurred within the following many years.
A analysis paper revealed in 2001 by Richard Samuels, nonetheless, states that the Unification Church “constructed its Japan headquarters on land in Tokyo as soon as owned by Kishi. By the early Seventies, quite a lot of LDP politicians had been utilizing Unification Church members as marketing campaign staff. Whereas the politicians had been required to pledge to go to the Church’s headquarters in Korea and obtain Reverend Moon’s lectures on theology, it didn’t matter whether or not they had been members of the Church. Precise Church members– so-called “Moonies”– had been despatched by the Federation to serve with out compensation as industrious and extremely valued marketing campaign staff. In return, for a few years the Church loved safety from prosecution by Japanese authorities for his or her typically fraudulent and aggressive gross sales and conversion ways. Not by the way, by the Eighties, Japan reportedly supplied some four-fifths of Unification Church revenues worldwide.”
He provides that Shintaro Abe, Kishi’s son and Shinzo Abe’s father, “depended upon ‘Moonies’ in his election campaigns.”
Whereas particulars stay spare, we do know that Shinzo Abe inherited these Moonie connections. When he first grew to become prime minister in 2006, the youthful Abe confronted some criticism for sending “congratulatory cables to [Unification Church-related] ceremonies.”
Most lately, Shinzo Abe recorded a video message of congratulations for one more Unification Church occasion held September 12 of final 12 months.
The Nationwide Community of Attorneys Towards Non secular Gross sales issued an open protest letter on September 17 final 12 months, protesting this look: “If Mr. Abe is to proceed to be lively as a politician, it’s not a good suggestion to cooperate with and assist occasions in collaboration with the Unification Church and its entrance organizations.”
As famous by Samuels over 20 years in the past, “for a few years the Church loved safety from prosecution by Japanese authorities for his or her typically fraudulent and aggressive gross sales and conversion ways.” It was exactly this situation that sparked the Nationwide Community of Attorneys Towards Non secular Gross sales to protest in opposition to Shinzo Abe’s assist for the Unification Church.
And it appears to be this very situation that motivated Tetsuya Yamagami to focus on and kill Shinzo Abe.
Reporting from the Japanese mainstream media is now in settlement that Yamagami informed investigators that he blamed a “non secular group” (i.e. the Unification Church) for inducing his mom to donate a lot cash that it bankrupted the household. He initially ready to kill a church chief, however gave up after deciding it was too tough. Yamagami then turned his deal with Abe, whom he was conscious promoted the church at some degree.
What occurred subsequent has been nicely reported.
Why the Japanese media has refused to establish the “non secular group” that shaped the motive for the killing should stay as hypothesis at this juncture, although it displays very poorly on Japan’s standing as a democratic nation.
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