quote:

The United Red Army (連合赤軍, Rengō Sekigun) was a militant organization, that operated in Japan between July 1971 and March 1972.

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The United Red Army had 29 members and lost 14 by killing them in less than a year. Most were members of the New Left.

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Training and treatment of members

Soon after the United Red Army’s formation, two members originally from the Revolutionary Left deserted the group. In order to make an example of the defectors, Nagata arranged their murders with the assistance of other URA members.[9]

In December 1971, by the order of their leader Mori, the URA moved its headquarters to the training camps that the Red Army Faction had previously made use of. Aside from the preparation of their next movements and missions, the group underwent a process known as ‘self-criticism’, a ritual that had become normalized among Left groups in Japan at the time.[9] The original intention of this practice was to allow members of the group to strengthen their alignment with the values and purpose of the cause.[6]

However, Mori quickly introduced an element of violence to this process in keeping with the New Left’s demand for individuals to demonstrate their commitment. The purpose of this violence against members was to test their devotion to the cause. Mori argued that beating members into unconsciousness would allow for them to be reborn with true "communistic subjectivity" when they were brought back to consciousness.[4] Members of the URA expressed their concerns to Mori regarding this practice and the unpredictability as to the consequences of beatings, unsure of an exact way to achieve sending a member into unconsciousness.[3] As such, it was through this process that several group members were killed.

Two members originally from the Revolutionary Left were the first victims of self-criticism. Kato Yoshitaka was selected for self-criticism as he had spoken to police during an earlier interrogation, and Kojima Kazuko for lacking the ability to fight her “bourgeois thinking”.[4] Initially the pair were refused food, and from the 26th to the 27th of December Kato was tied up and beaten by group members.[3] Kojima was also beaten by group members. As Kato had not lost consciousness during the beatings, Mori concluded that he had not achieved self-criticism and so he was tied to a post outside in the harsh mountain climate to suffer further beatings. Once the leaders Nagata and Mori were satisfied that Kato had achieved self-critique he was brought inside. However, he died from his injuries on the 4th of January 1972.[4] This was not before another member, Ozaki Mitsuo, was killed in the self-critique process initiated against him on the 28th of December that resulted in his death two days later.[3]

These violent beatings ultimately saw the death of 12 members of the URA who had been deemed not sufficiently revolutionary. Many of the twelve victims died tied to posts in the open, exposed to the elements, but others were beaten to death or slaughtered with knives. The last death occurred on the 12th of February. The bodies of the victims were buried in the woods nearby their mountain camp.[3]

Fall

The police were able to trace the URA to their mountain hideout. In the surrounding areas, they located the bodies of members that had fallen victim during sessions of self-criticism.

In early February 1972, Mori and Nagata took a trip to Tokyo. Whilst they were away, several URA members took the opportunity to desert the group. On 15 February, remaining group members discovered that police were aware of their whereabouts which led them to leave their training base.[3] During their escape, two members were arrested. Mori and Nagata were also arrested upon return to the base to determine whether any group members remained.[8] The members that had fled the training base took a dangerous route through the mountains to Nagano prefecture in order to avoid leaving traces of footsteps and the strong odor of dead bodies that they carried due to lack of bathing facilities.[4] The following day, the group members split into two groups. One group arrested was shortly after at Karauizawa train station, having been reported by members of the public as suspicious due to their “bedraggled” look.[4]

The remaining group, consisting of five members, were chased by police into a lodge at the base of Mount Asama. Here the members took hostage of the lodge keeper’s wife.[8] A nine-day siege ensued which saw the mountain sealed off and 3 000 riot police on scene. The police did not close in on the group despite several exchanges of gunfire in order to protect the hostage.[8] Before the police cut off power to the lodge after a few days, group members watched media coverage of the siege on TV.[4] On the 28th of February, the tenth and final day of the incident, the police brought in a wrecking ball to destroy the entrance of the lodge and fired water mixed with teargas into the building to assist police in their room-by-room search.[8] After a battle that lasted eight hours and saw two police killed,[4] the members and their hostage were found taking shelter behind a mattress on the top floor of the building.[8] This event was viewed by 90% of Japan's television screens and became known as the Asama-Sanso incident.

Public perception

Initially after the siege, public perception of the group was markedly less negative than what it would become. In the month following the Asama-Sanso incident, there was significant coverage relating to the interrogation of group members. With police having provided information about the group’s killings, media communicated an image of the URA that associated “armed resistance with the murder of comrades”.[6] This saw a shift in public perception.[8] This sentiment was conveyed by a student who was interviewed for one of Japan’s most noteworthy news publications, the Asahi Shimbun. This student remarked "When they were captured without being completely defeated, I thought that they were definitely revolutionaries, and I felt a sense of resistance when adults labelled them a crazed group. But I can’t understand the logic of the lynchings. I lost the will to defend them".[3] Further, another student reported "Although I am, if anything, right wing, I understand the United Red Army members’ feelings ... Whichever way you look at it, Japan resembles a police state. In challenging the system, their battles have to take such [combative] forms".[4]

Convictions

In the initial stages of the investigation, group members refused to give information to police. Mori wrote to police in the month following the Asama Sanso incident to take responsibility for the killings and to ask for the group members bodies to be returned to their families. This was interpreted as an act of weakness by other members of the group, who felt betrayed given that Mori had punished other members for more trivial matters.[3] Following his speaking up, other members began to coöperate with police by providing statements. Each group member was given two options to choose from in how they could be tried by the courts. He or she could remain as in the collective and face a group trial given that the crimes were committed together, or be tried individually although this would result in being perceived as a traitor.[3] Seven members, including Mori, opted to be tried together. However, Mori committed suicide in prison on 1 January 1973 before making it to trial. Bando, one of the seven who had opted to be tried as a group, was released by authorities before trial at the demand of the Japanese Red Army (JRA). The JRA also demanded the release of Sakaguchi; however, he chose to remain to face trial,[3] Another two of the seven defected before trial, leaving only Nagata, Sakaguchi and Uegaki to face collective trial. Nagata and Sakaguchi were ultimately sentenced to death, whilst Uegaki received a 20-year sentence.[3]

Nagata died on 5 February 2011 from brain cancer while still being held in a detention facility. As of 2013, Sakaguchi is still alive in prison after an unsuccessful appeal of his sentence.[10]