Godfather of Japanese underworld steps aside

by **emad** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:29 pm

Justin McCurry in Tokyo Saturday July 30, 2005 The Guardian When dozens of armed police surrounded a house in an affluent neighbourhood of Kobe yesterday, nearby residents knew it could mean only one thing: something significant was about to happen in Japan's most notorious underworld organisation. The house was the headquarters of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime gang, and the police had not arrived with new evidence to arrest its members, but simply because they had got wind of an important meeting of the group's members. Hours later the most powerful figures in the Yamaguchi-gumi emerged to waiting chauffeur-driven cars, having presided over a bloodless handover of power that will take the yakuza, Japan's mafia, through one of the most tumultuous times in its history. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their intelligence was that Yoshinori Watanabe, the Yamaguchi-gumi's leader of 16 years, had stepped down to be replaced by his second-in-command, Kenichi Shinoda, a year his junior. A source familiar with the Japanese underworld said Mr Watanabe was thought to be in poor health. Mr Watanabe bequeaths his successor an organisation unscathed by years of police campaigns to break the grip of the yakuza on the multi-million-dollar underground economy. More than a decade of police crackdowns, introduced after an officer was shot dead by a gangster in 1992, have failed to make a dent in gang membership. According to the police, Japan's dozens of gangs, led by the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Inagawa-kai and the Sumiyoshi-kai, have a combined membership of about 87,000. Most of the recruits joined during the "lost decade" of recession in the 90s, when unemployment reached record levels and young men were easy pickings for gangs. The main beneficiary has been the Yamaguchi-gumi, which has also attracted members from smaller gangs that are poorly equipped to resist police investigations. The organisation grew by 1,100 members to 39,200 last year and now accounts for more than 45% of all gang members. Yakuza gangs preside over a vast business empire that earns billions of yen from extortion, gambling, guns, drugs and property deals. More recently they have become involved in the stock market and online pornography. Police officials have been alarmed by the rise in gang membership and plan to increase the number of police officers by 10,000 over three years in response. The yakuza have traditionally been given a wide berth by the authorities and tolerated by the public. Some even see them as modern-day samurai who, despite their ill-gotten gains and predilection for senseless violence, are capable of chivalry and generosity. In the two weeks after the Kobe earthquake of January 1995, in which more than 6,000 people died, the Yamaguchi-gumi claimed to have handed out 20,000 free meals. But members of the public are not immune from yakuza violence, and there have been outcries when innocent people have been caught in the crossfire, such as when a dentist was killed by a stray bullet during a shootout at a hotel in Kobe in 1997. There is also growing concern about the rise in violent exchanges between the yakuza and Chinese gangs. Although they present themselves as thoroughly modern businessmen, the yakuza remain deeply attached to tradition. One rite, yubitsume, requires an errant or incompetent gangster to chop off his little finger and present it to his boss. But even such practices are not immune to change: this month a doctor in Tokyo was arrested for helping a gangster chop off his finger under local anaesthetic. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1539332,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/japan/...32,00.html</a>

by **proldic** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:51 pm

Iris Chang and the curse of the whistleblower By Larry Chin April 21, 2005—Whistleblowers are a special breed. In the course of their often very personal confrontations with power and corruption, the real dangers faced by these exceptional individuals...and the extraordinary personal toll extracted...are scarcely understood, even by those closest to them. Whistleblowers fight on a unique battlefield—and deserve special consideration, recognition and respect. To say that the late Iris Chang, whistleblower, activist, and author of The Rape of Nanking and The Thread of the Silkworm, earned all three is an understatement. Sadly, she is still due, on all counts. A new biographical profile, "The Life and Death of Iris Chang" by Heidi Benson (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/17/05), offers some intriguing glimpses into Chang's personal and family life, new facts surrounding her suicide, and details on Chang's final days. But the emphasis of this profile, like so many other mainstream media treatments, is on Chang's personal demons and mental illness. Left answered are key questions that still beg to be investigated—separate from the fact of any mental afflictions she suffered. Was this whistleblower's life in danger, as she herself feared? Were the threats she described taken seriously, or were they dismissed as the ramblings of a paranoid and troubled woman? Chang had become a target of backlash after The Rape of Nanking. The book was met with a wave of angry reaction from Japanese nationalists, massacre deniers, and pro-Japan counter-intellectuals, counter-historians and politicos from all over the world. Entire volumes of counter-massacre material were published to refute Chang's book, and to attack her credibility. For example, The Nanjing Massacre by Honda Kitsuichi, A BOOK DESIGNED TO REFUTE THE RAPE OF NANKING CONTAINS AN OVERVIEW BY FRANK GIBNEY, A FORMER US NAVY INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE AND MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. Iris Chang had struck a nerve. Quoting from the San Francisco Chronicle profile: . . . torrents of hate mail came in, Brett [Douglas, Chang's husband] said. "Iris is sensitive, but she got charged up," he recalled. "When anybody questioned the validity of what she wrote, she would respond with overwhelming evidence to back it up. She's very much a perfectionist. It has hard for her not to react every single time." Most of the attacks came from Japanese ultranationalists. "We saw cartoons where she was portrayed as this woman with a great big mouth," Brett said. "She got used to the fact that there is a Web site called 'Iris Chang and Her Lies.' She would just laugh." But friends say Iris began to voice concerns for her safety. She believed her phone was tapped. She described finding threatening notes on her car. She said she was confronted by a man who said, "You will NOT continue writing this." She used a post office box, never her home address, for mail.".... Chang was involved in a potentially controversial project in her final months: a history of the Bataan Death March, and its forgotten horrors. It was during her final research trip to interview World War II veterans that she suffered an apparent mental breakdown. She was hospitalized and given medications. From the San Francisco Chronicle account: Normally, Iris never did interviews alone. She preferred to meet someone in each town who could introduce her to the veterans and their families. "I knew Iris was not right," her mother said. "She couldn't eat or drink. She was very depressed." She asked if Iris had any friends there she could call for help. One of the veterans—a colonel she had planned to meet in Louisville—came to the hotel. [Research project liaison] Smith said the colonel spent only a short time with her. "She was afraid of him when he showed up," Smith said. "But he spoke to her mother on the phone and told Iris, 'Your mom is on the phone, so it's OK.''' That afternoon, she checked herself in to Norton Psychiatric Hospital in Louisville, with help from the colonel. Through a third party, the colonel declined to be interviewed. "First they gave her an antipsychotic, to stabilize her," her mother said. "For three days they gave her medication, the first time in her life." (The family would not name specific drugs.)" Who was the colonel? What really happened to her during this harrowing time, spent alone and apart from family and friends? Chang wrote in her own suicide note that she was the target of a government operation to discredit her. She wrote: "There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. WHETHER IT WAS THE CIA OR SOME OTHER ORGANIZATION I WILL NEVER KNOW. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me. "Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I BELIEVE MY DETENTION AT NORTON HOSPITAL WAS THE GOVERNMENT'S ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT ME. "I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead." These portions of the suicide note, which were not included in earlier media reports of her suicide, have apparently been dismissed as symptoms of her depression and bipolar disorder. Is it significant that these passages were, according to the Chronicle piece, the final revision of Chang's suicide note—possibly her most important final thoughts?.... If there is a positive to this tragedy, it is that Iris Chang left behind a legacy so powerful that it almost renders all else moot. The doors that she kicked down will never again be closed. No matter who or what may have wanted to close them. <a href="http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/042105Chin/042105chin.html">onlinejournal.com/Comment...5chin.html</a>

by **rain** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 9:28 am

keeping in mind the gist of Jeff's latest blog - never fails to astound; the 'synchronicity is rockin' - I'd like to share (some of) the tour the post on Iris Chang (thanx proldic) sent me on. so, the first place I went - o.k., my methodology's a bit weird - 7/7 - did we miss something ? <a href="http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_spoils_of_war.htm">www.deepblacklies.co.uk/t...of_war.htm</a> and then to get this into some sort of historical context, how about something like this - <a href="http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/final_warning/cfr_and_the_brookings_institute.htm">www.the7thfire.com/new_wo...titute.htm</a> cont'd

Godfather of Japanese underworld steps aside

Godfather of Japanese underworld steps aside

Iris Chang

for Iris

Who is online