Otoya Yamaguchi (1943-1960) was a young Japanese man who rose to fame for killing the politician Inejiro Asanuma during a debate that was being broadcast on television. Yamaguchi was a member of a group sympathetic to the ideologies of the more radical right in Japan.
Yamaguchi, with only 17 years old, managed to enter with a short saber typical of Japanese culture to the room where the debate for the parliamentary elections was taking place. The exact reasons why he attacked the political leader were never known.
Yamaguchi (left) at the time of Asanuma's murder (right). Source: Asahi Shimbun Company, via Wikimedia Commons.
It is believed that Yamaguchi, because of his sympathy with ultra-nationalism, wanted Japan to return to the more traditional line of ideas. While Inejiro was the head of the Socialist Party of Japan, the most progressive movement of those years in the Asian country.
It all happened in the Tokyo Hibiya room on October 12, 1960, where more than a thousand people were present with the aim of listening to the political views of the moment. The attack was recorded thanks to the cameras of the NHK television company, whose name can be translated as the Japanese Broadcasting Society.
Yamaguchi committed suicide just days after the attack, while in detention. According to information provided by the police, the young man never explained what motivated him to assassinate the politician.
The assassination sparked a large number of demonstrations later against the police for failing to guarantee the safety of the socialist party politician. The news was quickly replicated in the media around the world.
Murder
On October 12, 1960, Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Socialist Party of Japan, was the protagonist because he was in front of more than a thousand people defending his ideas in a political debate against other opposition leaders.
This debate was taking place at the Hibiya Hall in Tokyo, and was also broadcast by NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Society).
At one point in the debate, confusion began to reign after young Otoya Yamaguchi, who had attended the event as part of the Greater Japan Patriotic Society, appeared on the scene. He was only 17 years old and appeared from Asanuma's left with a samurai sword about 12 inches long known as a wakizashi.
Yamaguchi did not hesitate and thrust his sword into the political leader's stomach. At that time, some security forces detained the armed youth, while other assistants worried about Asanuma's health.
Yamaguchi was evacuated from the scene on the right side of the stage and Asanuma was taken to the hospital. Both protagonists of the events left the premises in different places according to the press releases of the time.
The response of the security forces and assistants, despite being as quick as possible, was not enough to prevent Asanuma's death an hour after the attack occurred.
Precedents
Information on Yamaguchi is null prior to the murder. His ultranationalist motivations are not known. It was only known that he was part of the Uyoku dantai group, a radical association of conservative ideology totally contrary to the ideas of Asanuma.
Among the ideas put forward by the socialist politician, they highlighted that the United States was an enemy of China and Japan as a whole. He was one of the candidates for a position in what would become the Parliament of Japan.
Yamaguchi was a member of the Patriotic Society of Greater Japan who wanted the return of traditional ideas and governments, which had been in full decline for more than a decade. They rejected the lifestyle of foreign nations, especially western countries.
One of those attending the event was the Prime Minister of Japan, Hayato Ikeda, who was sitting near where the deadly assault occurred.
Victim
The politician Inejiro Asanuma, a victim of the event, died two months before his 62nd birthday. He had a very important role in speaking about the benefits of socialism on a cultural and economic level.
He was frowned upon by conservatives for his criticism of the United States. After his death, the Socialist Party of Japan was divided between politicians of the left and of the right.
After the sad events in the Hibiya Hall, many protests took place in the streets of the country. Among them, 15,000 people marched to the Tokyo police station to demand the resignation of the agency's director for his inefficiency in ensuring the politician's safety.
The US ambassador to Japan immediately expressed his condolences at the news of the murder and called the act a deplorable event. Despite the bad relationship between Asanuma and American politicians, the American government showed its respect for the death of the Japanese and showed its opposition to the act committed.
Russia and China also demonstrated. The former blamed the fascists for the act of horror, while in the Asian media there was talk of a hitman.
Yamaguchi Suicide
Otoya Yamaguchi, due to his age, was sent to a juvenile prison. After three weeks in the compound, he prepared a combination of toothpaste and water with which he was able to write on one of the walls: “Seven lives for my country. Long live his majesty the Emperor. "
With the sheet from his bed he managed to form several strips that served him to make a kind of rope with which he hung himself from the lamp in the cell and thus died by hanging.
Hero
He was considered a hero by some groups on the extreme right. During the funeral they paid him honors and his parents received multiple gifts in honor of their son.
When the news broke in the United States, media such as The Guardian misreported his name and identified him as Futaya.
50 years after Otoya Yamaguchi committed the crime, he was remembered by a small group in the Hibiya Hall where the murder occurred.
One of the members of the Dai Nippo Aikoku-to group acknowledged that they were honoring Yamaguchi for having done justice.
Repercussion
The photo in which the murder was portrayed, by Yasushi Nagao, allowed the photographer to win the Pulitzer Prize a year after the event. The image shows the moment in which Yamaguchi attacks Asanuma with the samurai sword. In turn, Nagao was also awarded the World Press Photo.
References
- Braynard, M. (2017). Otoya 0: A Literary Journal of the New Nationalism.
- Fetherling, G. (2001). The book of assassins. New York: Wiley.
- Japanese People Who Died in Prison Custody. (2010). General Books LLC.
- Newton, M. (2014). Famous assassinations in world history. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.
- Yamaguchi otoya kyōjutsu chōsho. (2010). Tōkyō: Tendensha.