Tokyo: The co-founder of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) terrorist group was released from prison on Saturday after serving a 20-year sentence and apologized for hurting innocent people.
“I feel strongly that I have finally come alive,” she said, welcomed by her daughter and a crowd of journalists and supporters in Tokyo.
“I have hurt innocent people I did not know by putting my struggles first. Although they were different times, I would like to take this opportunity to deeply apologize,” Shigenobu said, The Associated Press reported.
Fusako Shigenobu, 76, was convicted of masterminding the 1974 siege of the French Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands.
The Japanese Red Army, formed in 1971 and affiliated with Palestinian militants, claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the 1975 takeover of the US consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Shigenobu first became radicalized during university, where she became involved in the student movement of the 1960s in Japan. The protests were directed not only at the Japanese government, but also against the US military presence in Japan and the Vietnam War. As the decade progressed, she became increasingly involved in armed resistance and revolutionary politics, while large-scale factionalism overtook the Japanese student movement.
In 1971, a part of the group, led by Shigenobu, left Japan and moved to Lebanon to support the Palestinian cause, where they joined with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Fusako Shigenobu and Ghassan Kanafani in the office of Al Hadaf magazine, Lebanon, 1972. (ground)
While in Lebanon, Shigenobu began working for Al Hadaf magazine, the public relations office of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as its editor-in-chief, Ghassan Kanafani, He was also a prominent member of PFLP.
According to May Shigenobu in an interview with Funambulist, his position within the magazine increased Japanese support for the Palestinian cause through the provision of information to the Japanese left about events on the ground and the Palestinian conflict.
In May 1972, members of the JRA were believed to be involved in a machine-gun and grenade attack on the international airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, which killed 28 people, including two terrorists, and wounded dozens more.
Although Shigenobu was not physically present in the attacks, she was forced to go underground for fear of Israeli retaliation against JRA members working with the PFLP. There were reports in the Arab media that Israel attempted to kill Shigenobu by bombing the buildings where she lived.
Around that time, she became pregnant with their daughter named May, who was born in 1973, and the two lived underground for the next 28 years.
While underground, Japanese volunteers for the PFLP decided to form a political organization in 1974. Shigenobu became the leader and spokesman of this internationalist left-wing revolutionary organization that captured the Japanese Red Army (and the Arab-Red Army in its early stages). He conducted several operations against “capitalist-imperialist entities” such as the Shell Corporation in Singapore (1974), as well as demanding the release of political prisoners by capturing the French Embassy in The Hague (1974) and the US Consulate in Kuala Lumpur. 1975). Shigenobu denied participating in the Hague incident.
After the JRA became an independent entity in 1974, it sought to ensure the safety of civilians in any future operations. After a policy change, all their military operations ceased by the late 1980s. The group decided to continue its work by focusing on grassroots support and solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Shigenobu was arrested in 2000 in Osaka, central Japan, where she was hiding. The government charged him with two counts of passport forgery and conspiracy to plan a 1974 hostage-taking operation at the French Embassy in The Hague. Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, reported that prosecutors offered no convincing evidence of Shigenobu’s involvement and relied heavily on “forced” confession statements taken in the 1970s taken back by those witnesses during the trial. Disregarding such withdrawal, the judge sentenced him to 20 years imprisonment.
A year after his arrest, he disbanded the group.
Japanese media reports said that Shigenobu had cancer surgery during his captivity.
After his release, Shigenobu commented on the use of the word “terrorist”, which, he said, was a designation dreamed up by the administration of former US President Ronald Reagan.
“I never considered myself a terrorist,” she said.
“At the time, armed forces, liberation forces, and revolutionary organizations were given the names of armed political forces. The term “terrorist” was a product of the Reagan administration and the Israeli government’s efforts to hide and criminalize disgruntled political intentions and backgrounds.
Shigenobu compared Palestine’s “terrorists” fighting for independence against Israel to those fighting for independence for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Suppose the Ukrainian people’s struggle against Russian aggression is heroic. In that case, I want them to know that the Palestinian struggle against Israeli aggression and annexation is not terrorism but a heroic struggle,” she said.
On the illegal acquisition and use of other people’s passports, for which he was convicted in Japan, Shigenobu apologized and said, “It was a shameful act as a human being.” However, she maintains her innocence in relation to the attack on the French Embassy in The Hague.
“I fought the case in the Supreme Court, but it was dismissed, and I served my sentence,” she said.
“Of course, I was dissatisfied and discussed the possibility of a retrial with my attorney. The retaliation, heavy-handed assault and punishment against the former activities of the already dissolved JRA were against me and those who had joined the group. fought as leaders. In such circumstances, I gave up going ahead with a rethink because I thought I could live my life by accepting my punishment for taking responsibility and living a positive life as a person in a leadership position. I can prosper. I don’t want the security police and their allies to interfere in my new life.”
Shigenobu has been called a Japanese terrorist, known as the “Empress of Terror” and a freedom fighter, considered both a terrorist and a hero. Despite the relativity of that debate, his unwavering devotion to the Palestinian cause is undeniable.
This article was originally published in Japanese on Arab News Japan