The was a Japanese

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

organization that existed from 1972 to 1975. The EAAJAF self-identifies as a leftist group which espouses

Anti-Japaneseism is a radical ideology promoted by a faction of the Japanese New Left that advocates for the destruction of the nation of Japan. The ideology was first conceived by Katsuhisa Oomori, a member of the New Left, in the 1970s. Extending from anti- ...

ideology of revolution against the Japanese state,

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

s, and symbols of

Japanese imperialism This is a list of regions occupied or annexed by the Empire of Japan until 1945, the year of the end of World War II in Asia, after the surrender of Japan. Control over all territories except most of the Japanese mainland (Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyu ...

, and was classified as a

far-left Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars conside ...

illegal group inspired by anti-Japanese

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

. The EAAJAF committed a series of bombings as three

cells Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery w ...

during the early 1970s, including the

1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing The 1974 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing ( ja, 三菱重工爆破事件) was a terrorist bombing of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Tokyo, Japan on 30 August 1974, killing eight people and injuring 376 others. The bombing was ...

, until it was disbanded when most of its membership were arrested by Japanese authorities. Some members joined the

Japanese Red Army The was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001. It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971 and was most active i ...

Origins and history

L-Class Struggle Committee of Hosei University

The roots of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front lie in the L-Class Struggle Committee, which was formed in the spring of 1970 by Masashi Daidōji, at that time enrolled in history courses at the department of humanities of

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of la ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

. The L-Class Struggle Committee's name comes from the university class that Daidōji was affiliated with, and factionally it was classified as "non-sect radical", a Japanese

movement who refused to align with the

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

s or any other established group. Daidōji called upon the

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

students of other departments to participate and membership briefly swelled to more than 100 people. However, along with the demise of the influential Zenkyoto (or All Campus Joint Struggle Committee) movement, the L-Class Struggle Committee also naturally came to an end and Daidōji then dropped out of Hosei University.

The Research Group

In August 1970, a "Research Group" was set up centering on Daidōji and the principal members of the L-Class Struggle Committee. This Group did intensive studies on the "evil deeds" of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

which fomented among them extreme anti-Japanese ideas. They used books such as Park Kyung Sik's as their then current study material. At the same time they also had an interest in urban guerrilla warfare and studied material on

resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...

s, and before long these two topics converged into the idea that they had to build an armed anti-Japanese movement. In January 1971, the Research Group began undertaking their first experiments with

homemade bomb An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechan ...

Start of the "campaign struggle"

To start off it was decided that they would blow up structures that were symbols of Japanese imperialism as part of the so-called "campaign struggle" making an appeal to the masses. They undertook three attacks, the bombing at the Koa Kannon temple on 12 December 1971, the bombing of the Soji-ji Ossuary on 6 April 1972, and the bombing of the Fusetsu no Gunzo and Institute of Northern Cultures on 23 October 1972. They considered these targets to be associated respectively with Japan’s participation in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the

Japanese colonization of Korea Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business of ...

, and the subjugation of the

Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...

Hokkaido is Japan, Japan's Japanese archipelago, second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost Prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own List of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; th ...

. After these three attacks, they decided to shift to full-blown

bombings.

Birth of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front

In December 1972, the group decided on the name East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF) but were aware that this was a name that could be used generically by any anti-Japanese group. The EAAJAF decided they needed individual names for their own

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...

s, with Daidōji and his team settled on the name to express an image of proud independence. In 1973, the EAAJAF were preparing for their attacks, developing bombs and saving up a

war chest A war chest is a metaphor for any collection of tools or money intended to be used in a challenging or dangerous situation. Historically, it referred to an actual chest located in the homes or barracks of soldiers or military leadership, in which ...

to fund their operations. They constructed the bombs with the tools and basic necessities that they had on hand, but there were also members who dug under the floor of their own apartments and created underground bomb-making cellars. In addition, to bring their messages to the public they set about writing their own tract, the '' Hara Hara Tokei'', which they published in March 1974. On 14 August 1974, they tried to blow up the iron bridge over which

Emperor Shōwa Emperor , commonly known in English-speaking countries by his personal name , was the 124th emperor of Japan, ruling from 25 December 1926 until his death in 1989. Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kōjun, had two sons and five daughters; he was ...

's royal train was travelling, which they code-named the "Rainbow Operation". However, the plot was aborted because a member was spotted shortly before it was to be put into action. The following day, an assassination attempt on the life of President

Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

was made by Mun Segwang, a member of

Chongryon The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan,
" ''

and a militant who hailed from the "Armed Front of High School Students for Violent Revolution", an organization affiliated with the Proletarian Army that in turn had a number of ties with anarchists. The EAAJAF's Wolf cell was spurred into new terrorist bombings in sympathy with Mun Segwang. On 30 August 1974, the EAAJAF committed the

when they exploded a bomb at the Tokyo head office of

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi ...

, killing 8 people and wounding 376 others. The bombing caused destruction that far surpassed EAAJAF's expectations, and from there they launched serial bombings against Japanese corporations with the newly joined and cells until May 1975.

Mass arrests

At first

Ryu Ota was a Japanese New Left extremist, author, and ecologist. His name is spelled "Ryu Ohta" as well. Biography He was born Tōichi Kurihara (栗原登一) in Toyohara, Karafuto Prefecture. In October 1945, he joined the Democratic Youth League o ...

, who, like the EAAJAF, advocated an "Ainu revolution" at that time, was suspected as a member. Before long Ota's innocence was proven, but the Japanese police presumed that there were EAAJAF operatives somewhere in his ideological circle and, as a result of deciding to target the "Revolt Society" and the "Contemporary Thought Society" that Ota was involved with, the members Nodoka Saito and Norio Sasaki floated to the surface. While tailing these two, the other members of the group were deduced one after another. Sasaki joined

Soka Gakkai is a Japanese Buddhist religious movement based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren as taught by its first three presidents Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Jōsei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. It is the largest of the Japane ...

and though he pretended to be an enthusiastic member doing things like giving the

lotus sutra The ''Lotus Sūtra'' ( zh, 妙法蓮華經; sa, सद्धर्मपुण्डरीकसूत्रम्, translit=Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram, lit=Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, italic=) is one of the most influ ...

every day, he was not able to escape the eyes of the law. On 19 May 1975, seven key members: Masashi Daidōji and his wife Ayako, Saito, Ekida, Sasaki, Masunaga, and Kurokawa, were arrested as well as a nursing student who was considered a collaborator. Saito committed suicide soon after his arrest, and two members who escaped the roundup, Ugajin and Kirishima, were put on the national wanted list.

Developments since the EAAJAF's demise

On 4 August 1975, the

took hostages at the United States consulate in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

and the Japanese government gave in to their demands to release Norio Sasaki among others. The trials of the remaining terrorists were started from 25 December 1975, but on 28 September 1977 a team of Japanese Red Army operatives including Sasaki hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 472 and two days later forced the release of Ayako Daidōji and Yukiko Ekida. They both joined the Japanese Red Army. In 1979, Hara Hara Tokei Special Issue #1 was published underground by a group called East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front KF Unit, named after the codenames of two members who committed suicide. It was believed that the book, which reaffirmed the anti-Japanese armed struggle, was created by the still-jailed members because the address of the publisher was the

Tokyo Detention House The is a correctional facility in Katsushika, Tokyo. The prison, which is operated by the Ministry of Justice, is one of seven detention centres that carry out executions in Japan. It is used to detain people awaiting trial, convicted felons and ...

. Masashi Daidōji and Toshiaki Masunaga were given the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

, and Yoshimasa Kurokawa was given

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...

with hard labor. In July 1982, Hisaichi Ugajin was arrested and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment with hard labor. On 24 March 1995 Yukiko Ekida was detained while in hiding in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

on suspicion of forging a private document. She was deported, arrested on the plane to Japan, and at trial was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labor. She was released on March 23, 2017, after completing her sentence. Today, Norio Sasaki and Ayako Daidōji are still wanted internationally. The

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...

on Satoshi Kirishima's crimes has elapsed. Daidōji died in prison on May 24, 2017, due to complications from

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, ...

. Masunaga, who is still on

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ...

, is requesting new trials while undertaking a "struggle behind bars" which includes writing revolutionary essays and books from his prison cell. Daidōji also engaged in this "struggle" up until his death.

Distinguishing characteristics

Perhaps because they were originally classmates, the EAAJAF was known for rejecting the , which manifested as sometimes violent self-criticism sessions popular within Japanese New Left groups, in order to expose those among their members who were not ideologically pure. The

United Red Army The was a militant organization, that operated in Japan between July 1971 and March 1972. The URA was formed as the result of a merger that began on 13 July 1971 between two extremist groups, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist , led in 1971 by Tsuneo ...

, for example, murdered 14 of its 29 members in less than a year through such sessions. By contrast, there were no bloody purges in the EAAJAF and those members who had family commitments or were unable to mentally endure the struggle were permitted to leave without penalty. Nahoko Arai, who helped write Hara Hara Tokei, and Yoshimi Fujisawa, who was part of the group's early trainings with explosives, both left the group without incident after raising personal issues. The EAAJAF did not have any centralized systems or leadership such as a

central committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...

. The leaders of EAAJAF's three cells were in contact with one another and nothing more. There was no mingling among fellow members and even their ideological positions were different in subtle ways. EAAJAF members also did not disassociate from the public sphere. They adopted the policy of working by day as normal corporate employees or servers at cafes and preparing their operations by night. This policy was also set out in Hara Hara Tokei and the idea was that by not engaging in activism and pretending to be completely upstanding citizens they would not arouse the mistrust of those around them. Because of that, EAAJAF members did not participate in labor movements at their workplaces or social movements in their neighborhoods. Whereas other groups such as

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (RAF, ; , ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, , active 1970–1998), was a West German far-left Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group founded in 1970. The ...

of the

Communist League The Communist League (German: ''Bund der Kommunisten)'' was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and t ...

, a precursor to the

, raised funds through illegal means including bank robberies, EAAJAF operatives received wages working at regular jobs and secured a legal source of revenue by investing half of their earnings into their operations. Even though the EAAJAF recognized self-funding as a core principle, on the other hand they declined to completely rule out robberies following a full examination of their targets and methods.

Ideology

As they studied the history of aggression by Japan against Korea and the Ainu, the EAAJAF acquired its personal "anti-Japanese ideology". They considered not only those in power, but also Japanese corporations and laborers as "perpetrators of imperialist aggression" and believed that they were acceptable targets for attack. Hara Hara Tokei refers to the Japanese people with a name of their own creation, as , meaning "people born of Japanese imperialism", and condemns all ordinary citizens who did not support the "anti-Japanese struggle" as active members of the empire. In their claim of responsibility released after the 1974 bombing of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries they justified the indiscriminate terrorist attack by saying "People who were wounded or who died in the bombing are not uninvolved normal citizens. They are colonialists". Because of these dangerous and overly self-righteous ideas, even with the influence of the then New Left the number of people who supported the EAAJAF was few. Even the Front's leader, Masashi Daidōji, eventually apologized for his tactics. Since the 1970s, most Japanese New Left organizations had undertaken cautious "situational analyses" and based on those they acted in a planned manner to "start the revolution in Japan" from their own prepared blueprints, even if they didn't always directly confront their own gradual alienation from the Japanese masses. In contrast to this, organizations like the EAAJAF that advocated "anti-Japanese ideology", even if they did have the ambitious goal of "destroying Japan", did not have a concrete plan to achieve it. On the basis of their ideology, the EAAJAF undertook ad hoc terrorist attacks as "payback for the historical sins of Japanese imperialism", and they tended to not pay much heed to whether or not they had popular support, though they did argue that the day laborers of

Sanya Sanya (; also spelled Samah) is the southernmost city on Hainan Island, and one of the four prefecture-level cities of Hainan Province in South China. According to the 2020 census, the total population of Sanya was 1,031,396 inhabitants, livi ...

were true revolutionary warriors.

Membership

The EAAJAF divided itself into small terrorist cells symbolically named after animals to represent the nature of their organization and the themes of its ideology: *The Wolf cell likened the 'oppressed masses' who were being 'tormented by capitalists' to the extinct Honshu wolf. Its members were the founder Masashi Daidōji, his wife Ayako Daidōji, as well as Toshiaki Masunaga and Norio Sasaki. *The Fangs of the Earth cell made its goal an ideal world without nation-states or capitalists and likened itself to fangs rising from the Earth to oppose them. Its members were Nodoka Saito and his wife Yukiko Ekida. *The Scorpion cell likened itself to a scorpion that will topple big capital and big buildings with the deadly poison of its own small organization. Its members were Yoshimasa Kurokawa, Hisaichi Ugajin, and Satoshi Kirishima.

Copycat crimes

In the latter half of the 1970s there was a succession of terrorist bombings seen as having been caused by anti-Japanese ideologues influenced by the EAAJAF or

. There were instances where the terrorist attacks were caused by people who called themselves sympathizers of or successors to the EAAJAF. Although it was acknowledged that they had no direct relation to the imprisoned EAAJAF members, claims of responsibility in the name of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front were put out in a series of terrorist bombings in Hokkaido between 1975 and 1976 including the bombing of a police station on 19 July 1975 that wounded four and the bombing of a government building on 2 March 1976 in which two were killed. Katsuhisa Omori was given the death sentence by the Sapporo District Court for the crimes in 1983, reaffirmed in 1994 and 2007, and is currently on death row, though he proclaims his innocence and admits only to sympathizing with the ideas contained within the claims of responsibility. Another sympathizer is Saburo Kato, who wounded 6 in his bombing of the

Association of Shinto Shrines The is a religious administrative organisation that oversees about 80,000 Shinto shrines in Japan. These shrines take the Ise Grand Shrine as the foundation of their belief. It is the largest Shrine Shinto organization in existence. Descript ...

in Tokyo on 27 October 1977. A case occurred near the end of March 1985 in which threatening letters were placed in several large supermarkets near

JNR The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987. Network Railways As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pre ...

's Yokohama Station that read "I will blow up this store with plastic explosives. —East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front". In a series of incidents 40 such letters were placed and threatening phone calls were made including demands for money, but on March 30 when police were on the lookout they caught in the act a third-year male middle school student from Midori-ku Yokohama. He said that his motive was to extort money as in the

Glico Morinaga case The , also known by its official designation , was a famous extortion case from 1984 to 1985 in Japan, primarily directed at the Japanese industrial confectioneries Ezaki Glico and Morinaga, and currently remains unsolved. The entire case spanned 1 ...

and that he also copied a tactic of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front which he learned about at a library.Asahi Shimbun 31 March 1985 Tokyo evening edition

References

Bibliography

* Andrews, William ''Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima''. London: Hurst, 2016. * Ryuichi Matsushita『狼煙を見よ東アジア反日武装戦線"狼"部隊』 : （読売新聞社・戦後ニッポンを読む、1997） : （河出書房新社・松下竜一その仕事22、2000）

External links

Website with information on the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front
{{DEFAULTSORT:East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front Anarchist organizations in Japan Anti-Japanese sentiment Communism in Japan Defunct anarchist militant groups Defunct communist militant groups Far-left politics in Japan Left-wing militant groups in Japan Terrorism in Japan