TOKYO: The co-founder of the Japanese Pink Army (JRA) militant group was launched from jail Saturday after serving a 20-year sentence, and apologized for hurting harmless folks.
“I really feel strongly that I’ve lastly come out alive,” she mentioned, welcomed by her daughter and a crowd of reporters and supporters in Tokyo.
“I’ve damage harmless folks I didn’t know by placing our struggles first. Though these have been completely different occasions, I want to take this chance to apologize deeply,” mentioned Shigenobu, the Related Press reported.
Fusako Shigenobu, 76, was convicted of masterminding the 1974 siege of the French Embassy within the Hague, the Netherlands.
The Japanese Pink Army, shaped in 1971 and linked with Palestinian militants, took accountability for a number of assaults together with the takeover of the U.S. Consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1975.
Shigenobu first grew to become radicalized throughout college, the place she joined the scholar motion of the Sixties in Japan. Protests have been directed not solely on the Japanese authorities, but additionally on the US navy presence in Japan and in opposition to the Vietnam Warfare. As the last decade progressed, she grew to become more and more concerned in armed resistance and revolutionary politics, whereas rampant factionalism overtook the Japanese scholar motion.
In 1971, part of the group, which was led by Shigenobu, left Japan and went to Lebanon to assist the Palestinian trigger, the place they grew to become assosiated with the In style Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Whereas in Lebanon, Shigenobu began working for Al Hadaf journal, the general public relations workplace of the In style Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) alongside its editor-in-chief Ghassan Kanafani, who was additionally a main member of the PFLP.
Her place inside the journal enhanced Japanese assist for the Palestinian trigger via the availability of infmormation to Japanese leftists relating to occasions occuring on the bottom and the Palestinian battle, based on Could Shigenobu in an interview with the the Funambulist.
In Could 1972, JRA members have been believed to be concerned within the machine-gun and grenade assault on the worldwide airport close to Tel Aviv, Israel that killed 28 folks, together with two terrorists, and injured dozens of individuals.
Though Shigenobu was not bodily current within the assaults, she was compelled underground in concern of Israeli reprisals in opposition to the JRA members working with PFLP. There have been stories on Arab media that Israel tried to assassinate Shigenobu by bombing the buildings the place she resided.
Round that point, she had gotten pregnant together with her daughter named Could, who was born in 1973 and the 2 lived underground for the following 28 years.
Whereas remaining underground, the Japanese volunteers for the PFLP determined to create a political group in 1974. Shigenobu grew to become the chief and spokesperson for this internationalist leftist revolutionary group that took on the Japanese Pink Army (and Arab-Pink Army in its early phases). They performed a number of operations in opposition to “capitalist-imperialist entities” such because the Shell company in Singapore (1974), in addition to demanding the discharge of political prisoners by occupying the French Embassy within the Hague (1974) and the U.S. Consulate in Kuala Lumpur (1975). Shigenobu denied collaborating within the Hague incident.
After the JRA grew to become an unbiased entity in 1974, it sought to make sure the protection of civilians in any future operations. After a coverage change, all their militaristic operations ceased by the late Nineteen Eighties. The group determined to proceed their work by specializing in grassroots assist and solidarity with the Palestinian folks.
Shigenobu was arrested in 2000 in Osaka in central Japan, the place she had been hiding. The federal government charged her with two counts of passport forgery and conspiracy in planning the 1974 hostage-taking operation on the French Embassy within the Hague. Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Community reported that the prosecution introduced no concrete proof of Shigenobu’s involvement and relied closely on “compelled” confession statements taken within the Seventies retracted by these witnesses throughout the trial. Disregarding such retractions, the decide sentenced her to twenty years of imprisonment.
A 12 months after her arrest, she declared the group dissolved.
Japanese media stories mentioned Shigenobu had undergone surgical procedure for most cancers throughout her incarceration.
After her launch, Shigenobu commented on the usage of the time period “terrorist,” which, she mentioned, was a designation dreamed up by the administration of former USPresident Ronald Reagan.
“I’ve by no means thought of myself a terrorist,” She mentioned.
“At the moment, armed forces, liberation forces and revolutionary organizations have been the names given to armed political forces. The time period “terrorist” was a product of the Reagan administration and Israeli authorities efforts to hide dissident political intentions and backgrounds and criminalize them.”
Shigenobu in contrast the “terrorists” of Palestine preventing for freedom in opposition to Israel to these preventing in opposition to freedom for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Suppose the Ukrainian folks’s battle in opposition to Russian aggression is heroic. In that case, I need them to know that the Palestinian battle in opposition to Israeli aggression and annexation shouldn’t be terrorism however a heroic battle,” she mentioned.
On the unlawful acquisition and use of different folks’s passports for which she was convicted in Japan, Shigenobu apologized and mentioned, “it was a shameful act as a human being.” Nevertheless, she maintains her innocence relating to the assault on the French embassy in The Hague.
“I fought the case to the Supreme Court docket, however it was dismissed, and I served my sentence,” she mentioned.
“In fact, I used to be dissatisfied and mentioned the potential for a retrial with my lawyer. The retaliatory, heavy-handed assaults and sentences in opposition to the previous actions of the already disbanded JRA have been in opposition to me and people who had fought as leaders of the group. Below such circumstances, I gave up continuing with the retrial as a result of I believed that I might enrich my life by accepting my sentence to take accountability as an individual in a management place and by dwelling positively. I don’t need the safety police and their associates to intrude with my new life.”
Shigenobu has been known as each a Japanese terrorist, having been often called the “empress of terror” and a freedom fighter, thought to be each a terrorist and a hero. Regardless of the relativity of that debate, her unwavering devotion in direction of the Palestinian trigger stays indeniable.
This text was initially revealed in Japanese on Arab News Japan
