Takaya Shiomi

Takaya Shiomi (塩見 孝也, Shiomi Takaya, May 22, 1941 - November 14, 2017) was a Japanese communist activist and the founder and leader of Red Army Faction (Sekigunha), a schismatic militant subfaction of the Japan Communist League. He was the mastermind behind the hijacking of Japan Air Lines Flight 351 to North Korea in 1970, although his arrest just days prior prevented his direct participation in the incident.

Early life

Takaya Shiomi was born the son of a doctor on May 22, 1941, in

By 1968, Shiomi had risen to become one of the highest-ranking members of the Kansai Bund, which had since reconstituted itself as a national organization known as the "Second Bund" (第二次ブント, Dainiji Bunto). That year, Shiomi decided that even the militant Second Bund was not militant enough, and broke away to found his own subgroup called the "Red Army Faction" (RAF), which called for immediate, armed revolution and began making plans for a violent uprising in Japan, originally intended to coincide with the 1970 Anpo protests.

Shiomi's main theory in founding the Red Army Faction was that by first carrying out a successful armed proletarian revolution in Japan, Japan would become the headquarters of a worldwide revolution against the United States of America and its allies, and the Red Army Faction would become the leaders of that revolution.^[2]

Finding the rest of the Second Bund unamenable to the cause of immediate, armed revolution, Shiomi and his followers in the RAF signaled their open split from their parent organization by launching an assault on the Bund's National Congress held at Meiji University in Tokyo on July 5, 1969, briefly seizing control of the venue.^[3] The next day, Bund students from Chuo University launched a counter-attack, kidnapping Shiomi and others, and imprisoning them for three weeks in a stronghold on the Chuo University campus, where they were subjected to threats and torture.^[3] Although Shiomi and the others eventually managed escape by descending from a third floor window using a makeshift rope constructed from a curtain and a hose, during the escape Red Army Faction member Jо̄ji Mochizuki fell and hit his head and would die from his injuries several weeks later.^[3]

As a result of this incident, the

On September 21, 1969, members of the Red Army Faction threw molotov cocktails at three police boxes in Osaka, in an incident grandiosely recollected by RAF members as the "Osaka War." Similarly on September 30, RAF members threw molotov cocktails at the Motofuji police box in Tokyo, which they then declared to have been the "Tokyo War."[5]

Meanwhile, the group planned more substantive attacks against government agencies and the Prime Minister's official residence, for which they began "training" at the Daibosatsu mountain pass northwest of Tokyo. However, on November 5, 1969, having been tipped off by informants, police raided the inn where the student militants were sleeping, arresting 53 group members (including many of Shiomi's key lieutenants, although Shiomi was not among them) and capturing detailed plans for the intended attacks.^[5] Realizing that the RAF could no longer operate openly in Japan, Shiomi took the organization underground, and began searching for a way to escape Japan so they could continue their guerrilla training overseas.^{[citation needed]}

Arrest, airline hijacking, and RAF schism

In early 1970, Shiomi began making plans to hijack a Japanese airliner, codenamed "Operation Phoenix," that would allow group members to fly to Cuba and continue their training. However, just before the hijacking could take place, Shiomi was arrested by chance on the street in Komagome, Tokyo on March 15, 1970, having been mistaken for a common thief.

Shiomi was indicted under the Explosives Control Law as a co-conspirator in the hijacking of JAL Flight 351. In 1980, after a lengthy trial, a sentence of 18 years' imprisonment was handed down. Shiomi was incarcerated at Fuchū Prison and ended up spending a total of 19 years and 9 months behind bars (including pre-trial detention) before being released in December 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Later years

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After his release from prison, Shiomi made common cause with right-wing ultranationalists on the basis of Japanese nationalism and anti-Americanism, often appearing at meetings held by the

In 2015, he ran for city council in Kiyose city in Tokyo prefecture, under the slogan "Overthrow the Abe administration, which robs young people of hope, and fight against the Kiyose municipal government, which bullies the elderly." However he was defeated, coming in 22nd out of 23 candidates in a race for 20 council seats.

Shiomi died of heart failure on November 14, 2017.

References

Citations

Works cited

• Andrews, William (2016). Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima. London: Hurst.
  ISBN 978-1849045797
  .
• Kapur, Nick (2018). Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  ISBN 978-0674984424
  .
• Kapur, Nick (July 15, 2022). "The Japanese Student Movement in the Cold War Crucible, 1945-1972" (PDF). The Asia-Pacific Journal. 20 (14).
• Steinhoff, Patricia (November 1989). "Hijackers, Bombers, and Bank Robbers: Managerial Style in the Japanese Red Army". The Journal of Asian Studies. 48 (4): 724–740.
  S2CID 159654927
  .