That's PFN's department and that'll never be anything but the UPN kids of TTL. It'll all be explained when Geekhis says which studio buys ABC. Also, blocks rarely, if ever, become their own channels in the US.
"To Introduce our Guest Star, that's What I'm Here to Do..." The Hensonverse Fan Contribution Thread
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
So The Family Channel is owned by PFN?
Boomerang, Nick Jr, TeenNick and PBS Kids says hi!
If KBC does become a channel, it'll probably do it in 09, provided it even makes it that far. All I know is that we in the UK had Fox Kids and Nick Jr as channels for much, much longer.
Did you choose 2009 because of the digital TV transition? If so, KBC would provide a great network to offer to local stations and a alternative to the more younger-skewing Qubo channel, assuming that even exist ITTL, but we have years ITTL before we'd have to worry about that. And I think KBC can make it to 2009. All they have to do is not get stupid and keep providing good programming.
European Political News 1995
EU News Round Up, Spring 1994-Spring 1995
Shoutout to @Ogrebear for helping to fill this out.
Posted with @Geekhis Khan approval
Conservative Wins in UK Fuel EPP Win
June 13, 1994
Since the founding of the European Parliament in 1979 the Socialist Group has held the most seats and the right to name the President who would preside over the first half of the five year parliamentary term. An agreement between the Socialist Group and the next largest group, the European People’s Party (EPP) which consists of the centre-right Christian Democratic and Conservative Parties of Europe, has led to EPP selecting the President for the second half of the parliamentary term. Unfortunately for the Socialist Group, which formed into the Party of European Socialist (PES) in 1992, the EPP has won more seats in Parliament and that right of first choice. The EPP’s 187 seat win over the PES’s 168[1] was made possible through Socialists losing ground in France and Conservatives picking up 17 seats in the UK to make up a majority of the delegation.
European election turnout was in the mid thirties, with Conservative voters turning out to express their disdain for Prime Minister Kinnock and his policies, electing 48 Conservatives and 32[2] Labour members essentially reversing the 1989 results. Opposition Leader John Major proclaimed this a tremendous victory for the Conservative Party and called for the Labour-Liberal Democratic coalition to call for a new election. Prime Minister Kinnock and Liberal-Democratic Leader Paddy Ashdown have been in discussions on the subject as the Liberal-Democrats have stated a preference in their platform for four year terms.
Despite the EPP taking the plurality it is expected that the same power sharing arrangement be made, just with an EPP member following incumbent President and EPP member Egon Klepsh of Germany rather than in 1997. With the election settled, the focus shifts to choosing the President of the European Commission that will begin their term in January…
Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene named European Commision President
June 25, 1994
European Leaders meeting in Corfu today agreed to the selection of Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene to be the next European Commission President in January. Prime Minister Dehaene had the backing of the Franco-German block and had picked up the support of the rest of Europe. Dehaene’s cause was helped by his relationship with President Gore, as the two had multiple conversations in the lead up to American involvement in Rwanda [3]. Despite the unanimous support from European Leaders, the appointment was not without controversy. Dehaen is a vocal advocate of European federalism, a controversial proposal especially in the United Kingdom. Conservative Leader John Major [4] expressed outrage that Prime Minister Kinnock didn’t object to Dehaene’s appointment even after “the British public sent a clear signal in the European Parliament election that they oppose suche [federalist] schemes”. Mr. Major has expressed a commitment to taking a stirner line with the European Union if his Party takes power in a future election.
With Dehaene set to take the Presidency in January, the European community can expect…
A Blessed Good Friday [5]
April 14, 1995
Special Envoy Bruce Morrison Announcing the Agreement (Screen grab from C-SPAN)
After three decades of violence the people of Northern Ireland may finally see peace after the signing of a historic agreement in Belfast yesterday. After intense negotiations from all sides this Good Friday will mark the end of a four year process to put an end to The Troubles that have plagued Northern Ireland for so long. In Belfast Special Envoy Bruce Morrison [6] oversaw the signing ceremony as UK Prime Minister Neil Kinnock and Irish Taoiseach John Bruton committed their nations to peace, along with the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties to resolve Northern Ireland’s devolved government structure.
The Good Friday Agreement sees a border commission established to fix the disputed border line, open trade arrangements, the removal of some checkpoints, decommissioning of weapons, and Ireland agreeing that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, while the UK removes its claim on the whole of Ireland. The Northern Irish parties agreed on the structure of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and how elections will work. Both parts of the Agreement committed themselves to equality and Human rights clauses.
Timetable to this Agreement:
Le Pen Vote Shocks France [9]
April 25, 1995
Protests broke out in Paris yesterday as it became clear that after the first round of the French election, far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen has made it to the second round for the Presidency. An opening was created in part through wide-spread dissatisfaction with the administration of Socialist President Mitterand, high unemployment and scandals within the Socialists would lead to Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin coming in first with between 23 and 24% which was good enough for first but a decline of 10% from Mitterand’s 34% seven years ago. The decisive factor was the irreparable split in the conservative Gaullist Rally for the Republic as the acrimonious campaigns of Prime Minister Edouard Ballard and former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac brought bellow the approximately 18%[10] Le Pen received. A chastened Ballard and Chirac intend to hold a joint press conference where it is expected they will announce that another five to seven years of a Socialist Presidency is tolerable when compared….
Conservatives Held Off by Labour and Liberal-Democrats
May 5, 1995
Prime Minister Neil Kinnock delivering his victory speech (Image from The Social Review)
Prime Minister Neil Kinnock celebrated winning a second term in office last night after an unspectacular win in the General Election. Labour was buoyed by the recent Northern Ireland peace agreement signed on Good Friday which saw a rapid turnaround in what had previously been tepid polling. The Liberal Democrats are expected to enter into an agreement with Labour in the Commons in return for some reforms from their agenda.
The full Parliamentary results results of the May 5th election from across the country are:
Labour - 40% - 319 (+6) [11]
Conservatives - 37% - 289 (-8)
Lib Dems - 16% - 24 (+6)
Others - 7% - 24 (+1)
Total - 656 (+5), 329 needed for a majority.
These results are a disappointment for the Conservatives, who had held the lead in polling until the last few weeks. It is expected the Conservatives will change leader, although there has been no formal announcement. The bookies favourite to replace John Major is Micheal Portillo.
Labour also did well in the local elections, though the SNP, and Plaid Cymru, did well in their regions, and the Greens saw a surge of seats across the country [12] especially in Brighton and Hove area. In the London elections….
Jospin Landslide Against Le Pen
May 8, 1995
President-Elect Jospin shaking hands with former opponent Jacques Chirac (Image from this article)
With most votes counted in France, Socialist Lionel Jospin has defeated far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in a landslide 81-19[13] victory. 3 million more voters came out to vote in the second round than in the first round to express displeasure over the possibility of a Le Pen victory. In his victory speech a calm Jospin declared this a win, “not just for myself, but for the reform movement that has sprung up in support of my campaign.” He continued, “This movement carries all of our hopes, and all those who believe in the values of justice and progress must come together to prolong this hope and prepare tomorrow's success.' [14]. For his part the defeated Le Pen countered this message calling his defeat a “defeat of hope in France” and condemning the “lies” from Jospin’s campaign and condemning the refusal to appear at a debate with him [15]. The new President-Elect vowed to call a Parliamentary election to fulfil his promise of….
Socialists Win Big in French Legislative Election
June 11, 1995
Capitalizing on division in the opposition, the French Socialists have taken a plurality in the legislative election. Winning 264 [16] seats, Socialist Francois Hollande is expected to form a cohabitation agreement with the other left parties to become the next Prime Minister of France. While polls suggested that the right would hold their majority over the Legislature, it would seem that the inability of the French right to reconcile quickly after their bitter Presidential campaign allowed the French to get more candidates into the second round of legislative election. The French right were also not helped by Le Pen’s supporters largely staying home in the 2nd round and refusing to help the right parties that had support Jospin last month. The new legislature is expected to address President Jospin’s call for a reduction in terms from seven to five as well as….
-------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Compare with IOTL’s PES - 198, EPP - 157
[2]Compare with OTL’s Labour - 62, Conservative - 18
[3] IOTL, Prime Minister Dehaene pulled out Belgian peacekeepers after several were tortured and killed protecting Prime Minister Uwilingiliyimana. With no support coming on the horizon, Dehaene pulled his troops out which allowed the genocide to get started. Here, President Gore is involved in the UN approval to do something and convinces Dehaene to stay in Rwanda by supplying the sorts of soft help of advisers, equipment, and supplies you’d expect while they push the UN to support a larger peacekeeping effort.
[4] As Prime Minister IOTL, John Major single handedly torpedoed Dehaene over the federalism question and forced the Commission to select Luxembourg Prime Minister Jacques Santer instead who was softer on the issue. The European Parliament almost refused to confirm Santer’s appointment over how they felt Major handled this.
[5] The Guardian’s headline from IOTL
[6]]With the moved up TL of the peace process, George Mitchell only just ended his time as Senate Majority at this point ITTL.
[7]IOTL and ITTL Ambassador Richard Moore left this position to help with the Presidential campaign. IOTL, HW’s pick for replacement William HG Fitzgerald bumbled his way through the confirmation and raised some concerns about his ability for the job. With the peace process shifted up a year, a number of Irish American Senators including Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and George Mitchell tell HW he needs to pick someone who’s capable and so is withdrawn and replaced with HW’s long term political rival Donald Rumsfeld
[8] IOTL this went to former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell who retired in 1994; Bruce Morrison was the leading contender if Clinton had chosen to fill such a position in 1993. There is no year long breakdown in talks ITTL because while John Major kept bleeding seats and relying on the Northern Ireland Unionists, Neil Kinnock has a fairly free hand to keep the talks going.
[9]The headline from the Guardian in 2002 when Le Pen made it into the runoff.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/22/thefarright.france
[10]Final Results
Lionel Jospin - 24.3 (+1% compared to IOTL)
Jean-Marie Le Pen - 18 (+3% compared to IOTL)
Jacques Chirac - 17.84 (-3% compared to IOTL)
Edourd Ballard - 17.58 (-1% compared to IOTL)
Little c conservative voters are a bit more dissatisfied IOTL for a number of cultural and political reasons and as Chirac and Ballard wallop each other more far right RPR voters migrate to Le Pen, while more moderate ones just stay home.
[11] Labour wins due to a bounce from the Good Friday Agreement
[12] Greens getting a boost from the Gore green initiatives being reflected globally.
[13] Compare with Chirac’s 82-18 victory over Le Pen in 2002 as well as Chirac’s 53-47 victory over Jospin in 1995.
[14] Tweaked Jospin’s concession speech.
[15] All from Le Pen’s 2002 concession.
[16] Legislative Seats (Changes Since 1993)
Socialists: 264 (+211)
RPR: 127 (-115)
UfD: 114 (-93)
Communists: 40 (+16)
Greens: 8 (+8)
FN: 2 (+1)
Shoutout to @Ogrebear for helping to fill this out.
Posted with @Geekhis Khan approval
Conservative Wins in UK Fuel EPP Win
June 13, 1994
Since the founding of the European Parliament in 1979 the Socialist Group has held the most seats and the right to name the President who would preside over the first half of the five year parliamentary term. An agreement between the Socialist Group and the next largest group, the European People’s Party (EPP) which consists of the centre-right Christian Democratic and Conservative Parties of Europe, has led to EPP selecting the President for the second half of the parliamentary term. Unfortunately for the Socialist Group, which formed into the Party of European Socialist (PES) in 1992, the EPP has won more seats in Parliament and that right of first choice. The EPP’s 187 seat win over the PES’s 168[1] was made possible through Socialists losing ground in France and Conservatives picking up 17 seats in the UK to make up a majority of the delegation.
European election turnout was in the mid thirties, with Conservative voters turning out to express their disdain for Prime Minister Kinnock and his policies, electing 48 Conservatives and 32[2] Labour members essentially reversing the 1989 results. Opposition Leader John Major proclaimed this a tremendous victory for the Conservative Party and called for the Labour-Liberal Democratic coalition to call for a new election. Prime Minister Kinnock and Liberal-Democratic Leader Paddy Ashdown have been in discussions on the subject as the Liberal-Democrats have stated a preference in their platform for four year terms.
Despite the EPP taking the plurality it is expected that the same power sharing arrangement be made, just with an EPP member following incumbent President and EPP member Egon Klepsh of Germany rather than in 1997. With the election settled, the focus shifts to choosing the President of the European Commission that will begin their term in January…
Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene named European Commision President
June 25, 1994
European Leaders meeting in Corfu today agreed to the selection of Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene to be the next European Commission President in January. Prime Minister Dehaene had the backing of the Franco-German block and had picked up the support of the rest of Europe. Dehaene’s cause was helped by his relationship with President Gore, as the two had multiple conversations in the lead up to American involvement in Rwanda [3]. Despite the unanimous support from European Leaders, the appointment was not without controversy. Dehaen is a vocal advocate of European federalism, a controversial proposal especially in the United Kingdom. Conservative Leader John Major [4] expressed outrage that Prime Minister Kinnock didn’t object to Dehaene’s appointment even after “the British public sent a clear signal in the European Parliament election that they oppose suche [federalist] schemes”. Mr. Major has expressed a commitment to taking a stirner line with the European Union if his Party takes power in a future election.
With Dehaene set to take the Presidency in January, the European community can expect…
A Blessed Good Friday [5]
April 14, 1995
Special Envoy Bruce Morrison Announcing the Agreement (Screen grab from C-SPAN)
After three decades of violence the people of Northern Ireland may finally see peace after the signing of a historic agreement in Belfast yesterday. After intense negotiations from all sides this Good Friday will mark the end of a four year process to put an end to The Troubles that have plagued Northern Ireland for so long. In Belfast Special Envoy Bruce Morrison [6] oversaw the signing ceremony as UK Prime Minister Neil Kinnock and Irish Taoiseach John Bruton committed their nations to peace, along with the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties to resolve Northern Ireland’s devolved government structure.
The Good Friday Agreement sees a border commission established to fix the disputed border line, open trade arrangements, the removal of some checkpoints, decommissioning of weapons, and Ireland agreeing that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, while the UK removes its claim on the whole of Ireland. The Northern Irish parties agreed on the structure of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and how elections will work. Both parts of the Agreement committed themselves to equality and Human rights clauses.
Timetable to this Agreement:
- December 1991 - Prime Minister Kinnock announces Joint Declaration of Peace
- June1992 - President Bush appoints diplomat Donald Rumsfeld as Ambassador. [7]
- August 1992 - Ceasefire declared by IRA
- September 1992 - Loyalist Paramilitary follow suit
- February 1993 - President Gore appoints Jean Kennedy Smith Ambassador. Irish-American politicians call for a Special Envoy to Northern Ireland to be involved in the peace process. President Gore appoints former Congressman Bruce Morrison [8] to the position.
- Winter 1993-1994 - Negotiations over talks nearly fall apart over Northern Irish Unionist objections to including Sinn Fein in the talks. Prime Minister Kinnock and Special Envoy Morrison insist on their inclusion as a necessity to maintain the cease fire.
- June 1994- First round of “all party” talks begin
- Spring 1994-Spring 1995 - Series of talks held working out the details of a potential agreement
- April 1995 - Agreement in principle signed
- May 1995- There will be a referendum in Northern Ireland and the Republic for the public to ratify the Good Friday Agreement. Current polling puts the Referendum as likely to pass in both North and South. In the North only the DUP opposes the Agreement.
Le Pen Vote Shocks France [9]
April 25, 1995
Protests broke out in Paris yesterday as it became clear that after the first round of the French election, far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen has made it to the second round for the Presidency. An opening was created in part through wide-spread dissatisfaction with the administration of Socialist President Mitterand, high unemployment and scandals within the Socialists would lead to Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin coming in first with between 23 and 24% which was good enough for first but a decline of 10% from Mitterand’s 34% seven years ago. The decisive factor was the irreparable split in the conservative Gaullist Rally for the Republic as the acrimonious campaigns of Prime Minister Edouard Ballard and former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac brought bellow the approximately 18%[10] Le Pen received. A chastened Ballard and Chirac intend to hold a joint press conference where it is expected they will announce that another five to seven years of a Socialist Presidency is tolerable when compared….
Conservatives Held Off by Labour and Liberal-Democrats
May 5, 1995
Prime Minister Neil Kinnock delivering his victory speech (Image from The Social Review)
Prime Minister Neil Kinnock celebrated winning a second term in office last night after an unspectacular win in the General Election. Labour was buoyed by the recent Northern Ireland peace agreement signed on Good Friday which saw a rapid turnaround in what had previously been tepid polling. The Liberal Democrats are expected to enter into an agreement with Labour in the Commons in return for some reforms from their agenda.
The full Parliamentary results results of the May 5th election from across the country are:
Labour - 40% - 319 (+6) [11]
Conservatives - 37% - 289 (-8)
Lib Dems - 16% - 24 (+6)
Others - 7% - 24 (+1)
Total - 656 (+5), 329 needed for a majority.
These results are a disappointment for the Conservatives, who had held the lead in polling until the last few weeks. It is expected the Conservatives will change leader, although there has been no formal announcement. The bookies favourite to replace John Major is Micheal Portillo.
Labour also did well in the local elections, though the SNP, and Plaid Cymru, did well in their regions, and the Greens saw a surge of seats across the country [12] especially in Brighton and Hove area. In the London elections….
Jospin Landslide Against Le Pen
May 8, 1995
President-Elect Jospin shaking hands with former opponent Jacques Chirac (Image from this article)
With most votes counted in France, Socialist Lionel Jospin has defeated far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in a landslide 81-19[13] victory. 3 million more voters came out to vote in the second round than in the first round to express displeasure over the possibility of a Le Pen victory. In his victory speech a calm Jospin declared this a win, “not just for myself, but for the reform movement that has sprung up in support of my campaign.” He continued, “This movement carries all of our hopes, and all those who believe in the values of justice and progress must come together to prolong this hope and prepare tomorrow's success.' [14]. For his part the defeated Le Pen countered this message calling his defeat a “defeat of hope in France” and condemning the “lies” from Jospin’s campaign and condemning the refusal to appear at a debate with him [15]. The new President-Elect vowed to call a Parliamentary election to fulfil his promise of….
Socialists Win Big in French Legislative Election
June 11, 1995
Capitalizing on division in the opposition, the French Socialists have taken a plurality in the legislative election. Winning 264 [16] seats, Socialist Francois Hollande is expected to form a cohabitation agreement with the other left parties to become the next Prime Minister of France. While polls suggested that the right would hold their majority over the Legislature, it would seem that the inability of the French right to reconcile quickly after their bitter Presidential campaign allowed the French to get more candidates into the second round of legislative election. The French right were also not helped by Le Pen’s supporters largely staying home in the 2nd round and refusing to help the right parties that had support Jospin last month. The new legislature is expected to address President Jospin’s call for a reduction in terms from seven to five as well as….
-------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Compare with IOTL’s PES - 198, EPP - 157
[2]Compare with OTL’s Labour - 62, Conservative - 18
[3] IOTL, Prime Minister Dehaene pulled out Belgian peacekeepers after several were tortured and killed protecting Prime Minister Uwilingiliyimana. With no support coming on the horizon, Dehaene pulled his troops out which allowed the genocide to get started. Here, President Gore is involved in the UN approval to do something and convinces Dehaene to stay in Rwanda by supplying the sorts of soft help of advisers, equipment, and supplies you’d expect while they push the UN to support a larger peacekeeping effort.
[4] As Prime Minister IOTL, John Major single handedly torpedoed Dehaene over the federalism question and forced the Commission to select Luxembourg Prime Minister Jacques Santer instead who was softer on the issue. The European Parliament almost refused to confirm Santer’s appointment over how they felt Major handled this.
[5] The Guardian’s headline from IOTL
[6]]With the moved up TL of the peace process, George Mitchell only just ended his time as Senate Majority at this point ITTL.
[7]IOTL and ITTL Ambassador Richard Moore left this position to help with the Presidential campaign. IOTL, HW’s pick for replacement William HG Fitzgerald bumbled his way through the confirmation and raised some concerns about his ability for the job. With the peace process shifted up a year, a number of Irish American Senators including Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and George Mitchell tell HW he needs to pick someone who’s capable and so is withdrawn and replaced with HW’s long term political rival Donald Rumsfeld
[8] IOTL this went to former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell who retired in 1994; Bruce Morrison was the leading contender if Clinton had chosen to fill such a position in 1993. There is no year long breakdown in talks ITTL because while John Major kept bleeding seats and relying on the Northern Ireland Unionists, Neil Kinnock has a fairly free hand to keep the talks going.
[9]The headline from the Guardian in 2002 when Le Pen made it into the runoff.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/22/thefarright.france
[10]Final Results
Lionel Jospin - 24.3 (+1% compared to IOTL)
Jean-Marie Le Pen - 18 (+3% compared to IOTL)
Jacques Chirac - 17.84 (-3% compared to IOTL)
Edourd Ballard - 17.58 (-1% compared to IOTL)
Little c conservative voters are a bit more dissatisfied IOTL for a number of cultural and political reasons and as Chirac and Ballard wallop each other more far right RPR voters migrate to Le Pen, while more moderate ones just stay home.
[11] Labour wins due to a bounce from the Good Friday Agreement
[12] Greens getting a boost from the Gore green initiatives being reflected globally.
[13] Compare with Chirac’s 82-18 victory over Le Pen in 2002 as well as Chirac’s 53-47 victory over Jospin in 1995.
[14] Tweaked Jospin’s concession speech.
[15] All from Le Pen’s 2002 concession.
[16] Legislative Seats (Changes Since 1993)
Socialists: 264 (+211)
RPR: 127 (-115)
UfD: 114 (-93)
Communists: 40 (+16)
Greens: 8 (+8)
FN: 2 (+1)
Aum MG, WTF?!?
Approved by @Geekhis Khan
Chapter 8: A Cult of Terror in Japan Continued
Excerpt from Lost Decade/Found Decade: The Transformation of Postwar Japan from 1989 to 2009 By Daniel Ambrose [1] Retrieved via Netsite Archive [2]
The Failure of the System to Stop Aum.
Despite the public outcry for investigation against Aum Shinrikyo by early March, the Nagano Police were still dead set on Yoshiyuki Kono as their suspect in the Matsumoto gas attack. [3] They would refuse to budge from that. That is typical in Japan at the time as they cannot admit the system was wrong. Lead detectives were still on the case and still harassed Kono as he visited his comatose wife in the hospital. Though the idea of harassing Kono at the hospital came from the top of the Nagano Prefecture Police. Yamanashi Police did not contact other departments on Aum activities when there was the alleged manufacture of Sarin but Yamanashi Police did not investigate the complaints of villagers. As with the Sakamotos going missing in 1989, they were reported missing in Tokyo but the Sakamotos lived in Kanagawa Prefecture. And police departments in Japan have their jurisdictional fights. Almost all departments hated Tokyo with how they took over investigations that went into their jurisdiction. This hindered a search into the missing family and the police thought the family just left without notice. Not uncommon for one member of a family in Japan especially after 1991 but in 1989, before the economy of Japan really soured? It was unlikely. This on top of an attitude that things like rape, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking were not viewed as severe crimes but smoking marijuana was such a terrible offense. [4] This was not helped by a still unknown number of officers in various departments being Aum members and spies.
Then there was the problem with the Public Security Intelligence Agency as they didn’t investigate Aum at all. At least no evidence was found that a serious investigation was carried out. The usual background investigations were done but nothing beyond that. The PSIA was more interested in going after the Chosen Soren AKA Chongryon AKA General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. [5] They did not do anything to investigate Aum. While some of this was due to misjudging the threats, another part of this was because of the decisions of the Public Security Examination Commission. The Public Security Examination Commission was the governing body for the PSIA. They decided on what cases the agency went after. Now in a very Japanese manner the Commission was very much based on seniority and social harmony which means it is a lot of consensus or going with the group. It is similar in Japan when judges see innocent plaintiffs brought before the court and they find them guilty because they signed a confession, ignoring the fact they were held in a police station for months, but the judge decided that going against the police would “make waves”. The other issue was the Subversive Activities Prevention Act had a provision in it that prevented the unreasonable restriction of religion, expression, assembly, and other protected civil rights of Japanese citizens. The PSEC was scared of going after Aum Shinrikyo since in the 1960s they sent the PSIA after Soka Gakkai and they got caught and had a scandal erupt from that. In the end, the PSIA and the failure of the police led to Aum’s attacks against Japan being so severe. Instead of investigating them in 1989 after the Sakamato’s went missing and referring the case to the police, the PSIA did nothing. The PSIA being under the Ministry of Justice, and similar to MI5 meant it had no arresting power but also it lacked clear communication with local police agencies. PSEC did not want a scandal and what the PSEC said the PSIA did. So everything that could have been stopped Though most of the PSEC would not be around to be replaced.
When Aum members ran in the 1990 General Election. No Aum member won a seat in the Diet. They wore these creepy Asahara masks. (Source Sankei/Getty Images)
The politicians and bureaucrats never really thought much of Aum Shinrikyo, they thought it was an odd cult but it really never got its political feet wet after their electoral failure in the 1990 general election.[6] As Japan went through the political changes brought on by the Boeing Scandal, [7] the Recruit Scandal, the Souske Uno sex scandal, [8] the Tokuo Yamashita sex scandal, the Socialist victory in the snap election of 1991[9], the end of the economic miracle, The Segawa Express Scandal, the systemic corruption of amakudari, and various problems with government embezzlement from the Cabinet Office down to local governments to name a few, the cult skated not noticed by the political world. The Japanese Government was too distracted with their problems and a bad economy to notice Aum’s dangerous message and if they did notice it was often drowned out by angered voters, upset foreign investors, and so forth.
Foreign governments could have clued the Japanese Government that something was going on with Aum Shinrikyo but they either did not notice or old rivalries prevented other governments noticing. In the Union of Sovereign States, religion being made legal again opened a door for Aum Shinrikyo to get more recruits. And in the USR, Aum Shinrikyo got 60,000 members from 1991 to1995. [10] At the same time Shoko Asahara visited the USR and met senior USR government officials. Meanwhile, through bribes the cult had members under Akita Yamada train with Sovereign Army troops in the Far East Military district. The Aum offices in Russia opened and they gained followers as did other cults quack religions. It was more important to the cult that they gained access to Russian made armaments. From the AK-47 family of assault rifles, Rocket Propelled Grenades, squad machine guns, and other individually operated or crewed weapons. The cult purchased an Mi-17 helicopter via arms dealer Eduard Snatkin [11] and purchased many Russian made weapons through him but when he was arrested the Russians did not know it was Aum Shinrikyo interested in the Aral Sea biological weapons test site. [12] The Australian Government could have informed the Japanese Government about the cult activities in Australia in 1993 when they brought illegal chemicals into Australia. The illegal chemicals were not drugs so it did not warrant notification. Nor did Australian Customs closely inspect sake bottles as the contents weren’t sake, but Sarin. But this was due to attitudes in Austrian Security Services and repercussions from mistrust by Labor against the ASIO and the general view by internal allies that ASIS was a “Mickey Mouse'' Agency. [13]
The last group that failed to stop Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese press. The Japanese press treated the cult like it was a freak show. It was bizarre and weird and Japanese TV ate it up. They would put Asahara on any daytime TV when he could or interview him and they gave him a platform to promote his cult. The worst offender was the Tokyo Broadcasting System, they violated confidentiality and that led to the deaths of the Sakamotos by Aum members in November 1989. The cult had gotten away with that murder for five and a half years. The media then quickly jumped onto accepting Yoshiyuki Kono as the suspect due publishing an incorrect opinion by a leading military expert on how Sarin is made. The most famous media interview of Asahara was by “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, comedian, actor, director, writer, and television host. [14] There were reporters and some newspapers that did not report positively on Aum, Shimbum Akahata (Newspaper Red Banner) [15] did not like Aum and referred to the religion as theft of millions of yen. Despite the press changing views thanks to the Yomiuri story and older stories coming up again, if the press had been more critical of Aum perhaps the attacks could have been avoided.
Incidents Before 3/20
Besides kidnapping and killing people who rescued and hid cult members and killing perceived opposition with VX [16], Aum Shinrikyo was busy preparing for November 1995. While 1997 was the prophesied date for doomsday [17] the cult was going to kick off doomsday at the end of the year due to their plans to overthrow the government it had the simple name “National Overthrow Plan.” They planned on using a modified MIL Mi-17 helicopter with crop dusting modifications to spray Tokyo with Sarin. They would emerge from the chaos with allies in the military and kick off World War III, or ride out World War III.
As silly or bizarre this plan may seem to many now, what is scary is how close the cult got to carrying out its plans and what parts they carried out. They were starting a major operation to make Sarin, VX, Phosgene gas, cyanide gas, and explosives. Aum Shinrikyo had tried to make a nuclear bomb and they had made a large amount of conventional explosives. While their nuclear ambitions were squashed The cult was focused on making sarin and other gasses but at the start of the year their plans to make Sarin at their compound in Kamikuishiki hit three major roadblocks.
The first roadblock was the story in Yomiuri Shimbun [18], accusing the cult of being the party responsible for the Matsumoto Sarin attack. But also their poisoning of residents of Kamikuishiki village because of them making Sarin was made public. It was not helped that Taro Takimoto who besides helping the Aum Victim’s Association was keeping the anti-Aum message alive. As Takimoto would when asked to talk to reporters from other papers, TV, or radio would happily do so. His campaign was helped by the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka
The second roadblock was the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka, head of the Aum Victim’s Association. This act was viewed by the police foolishly as if it was suicide. [19] A police detective connected to the case but not on it would say years later they did not view the Nagaoka poisoning seriously. “I mean our division in the police usually deal with suicides, murders in Japan happen but we go out mostly to every hanging, poisoning, seppuku, and everyday you can imagine a person killing oneself and you get the picture.” Nagaoka was poisoned by a VX nerve agent solution being dropped on his neck via a syringe and absorbed into the skin. Nagaoka’s plight got attention in Japan and really started turning public opinion against Aum Shinrikyo.
Then finally, there were still internal problems In the cult. There were cultists who believed in what Asahara was saying but not the method. These members had tried several times to either take over the cult or undermine Asahara’s authority. This often left members in Aum Shinrikyo’s improvised prison at the Satyan complex near Mount Fuji. But dissidents in the cult still persisted. So Asahara had his inner circle deal with them, often by killing them.
Then the problem with the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya came about at the end of February 1995. Kariya had helped his sister escape from the cult and the cult wanted her as she had given the cult $600,000 dollars, they figured she had more. However, they could not find his sister and abducted Kariya. However, when trying to sedate Kariya his abductors overdosed him on anesthetic. His body was taken to the Aum Satyan compound and Kariya’s body was cremated in the microwave incinerator they had on the property.
However, the public had mostly turned against Aum by mid-March 1995. But the cult was moving onto something much more dangerous.
Before 3/20, there were some failed attacks against metros in Yokohama and Nagoya [20] but these were only suspected Aum attacks . A confirmed failed attack was on March 15th, 1995 when they attempted to release botulism at Kasumigaseki Station. A cult member replaced the botulism laced liquid with water. This went unnoticed by police until later.
However, the police finally decided to act, not on any of the rumored terrorist attacks but the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya after his sister told authorities of the terrors going on in the Aum Shinrikyo compound in the shadow of Mount Fuji. The Testimony of Kariya’s sister was what helped persuade authorities to act. At the same time Hiroyuki Nagaoka awoke from a 69 day coma and began to remember that someone had bumped into him before he was poisoned. Multiple prefectural police forces would raid the Kamikuishiki compound to search for Kariya.
There was a problem with the police plan for the March 22nd raid, the cult had spies in both the police and the Japan Self Defense Force. When the plans for the raid went out to law enforcement, Aum’s spies told the Aum leadership. This put the cult into a panic. They needed to distract the authorities from their search. The cult began up its sarin manufacturing again after having it disabled for months due to the fear of a police raid. So this sarin was made quickly and dirty. It was very impure and had a brownish tint to the fuild’s color. They made 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of sarin. Four of the five men carrying out the attack carried two packets totaling approximately 0.9 liters (30 US fl oz) of sarin, except for Yasuo Hayashi, who had three bags with 1.3 liters each of sarin.
Before the attack an Aum member was murdered. The reason for this was to make it look like the cult was under attack by ruthless enemies opposed to their message. The member picked was a member of Aum’s laborer class and was from a poor fishing family from Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture. Asahara’s bodyguard, Akira Yamagata, murdered Kijuro Akiyama (26) in Shirakawa Park, Naka Ward, Nagoya on March 19th, 1995.[21]
Yamagata would also lob a Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo. He also left anti-Aum leaflets on the walls of the headquarters. At the same time a bomb went to a pro-Aum scholar, he had ‘fortunately’ moved. But Yamagata knew the apartment would be empty.
Tokyo Subway Attack
A common factor in the Sarin attacks was Kasumigaseki Station (Source: Wikipedia)
Monday March 20th, 1995 seemed to most Tokyo Commuters to be like any other day. There were issues with ticketing, repairs being done to the various lines. The news of voice actor Yasuo Yamada’s death was still fresh in the morning papers. But as the morning commuters began to go to work the insidious sarin attack would begin.
Three subway lines were picked, the Chiyoda Line, the Marunouchi Line, and the Hibiya Line. Two lines, the Marunouchi Line and the Hibiya Line, had two perpetrators going in opposite direction Ogikubo-bound and Ikebukuro-bound on the Marunouchi Line and on the Hibiya Line the two perpetrators there were going towards Tōbu Dōbutsu Kōen-bound and Naka-Meguro-bound. [22] The perpetrators were going on the three lines and puncture the bags before leaving from the subway at a planned station.
The Tokyo Subway system is not just one subway but two. Eidan (Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan) and Toei (Toei chikatetsu). The two subways often have stations with lines that cohabit the platforms. This is uniquely Japanese in its operation. The subways were operated by different groups, Eidan was operated by the Ministry of Transport and Toei was operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This system in both the bureaucratic and the physical sense would complicate stopping the spread of sarin.
Sarin is a terrible weapon. Made by the Nazis in 1939, they mass produced but never used it in battle or in the death camps. Many of the Cold War Powers made sarin weapons in the 1950s. The first use of sarin didn’t occur until 1988 and was used by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq. All nerve agents cause their toxic effects by preventing the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles. Without an “off switch,” the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. Exposed people may become tired and no longer be able to keep breathing. Sarin is the most volatile of the nerve agents. This means it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and spread into the environment. People can be exposed to the vapor even if they do not come in contact with the liquid form of sarin. People exposed to a low or moderate dose of sarin may experience some or all of the following symptoms within seconds to hours of exposure: runny nose, watery eyes, small, pinpoint pupils, eye pain, blurred vision, drooling and excessive sweating, cough, chest tightness, rapid breathing, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain, increased urination, confusion, drowsiness, weakness. headache, slow or fast heart rate, and low or high blood pressure. Exposure to large doses of sarin by any route may result in the following harmful health effects: loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and respiratory failure possibly leading to death. The reason Aum picked the subway was simple: confined spaces meant the sarin would be more effective than via helicopter or via their spray truck. [23]
The perpetrators would get on the train and either puncture the bags before the stop they got off on or about halfway through the tunnel before the stop. The perpetrators would then, at the next stop, get off the train quickly. They would go into a getaway car and apply atropine to counter the effects of the sarin. When looking for the sarin bags, the police found them wrapped in various newspapers, like the Soka Gakkai paper or the communist party paper to the more conventional newspapers like The Nikkei or Sports Hochi.
Yasuo Hayashi carried more sarin as the cult leadership did not trust him entirely, he took large quantities and his bags of sarin had more impurities than the rest to prove his loyalties. The fact the whole batch of sarin was impure was a major blessing as since all sarin bags were found punctured by police, if the sarin was a better quality the casualties would be higher than 27.[24]
The perpetrators were also armed with umbrellas with sharpened tips. This was designed to puncture the bags containing the sarin. The five perpetrators all stabbed their bags multiple times. No sarin bags remained unpierced when police and fire department hazmat teams along with Japanese Ground Self Defense Force chemical troops would find them during the investigation. [25]
It quickly became apparent to passengers something was wrong. They felt ill, nauseous, their vision darkened, severe headaches, respiratory problems that got worse, they would have nose bleeds that became more severe, and muscular spasms that became more severe. As the passengers felt more ill, panic began to take hold. As the early effects of the strain hit, people began to pour out of trains affected in mass when they arrived at the stations. They had no idea what was going on; they just knew to get out. Station staff knew something was wrong but not what and allowed people to evacuate through the ticket halls of the subway stations. Several station attendants tried to clean up the sarin bags and did a heroic job with them either paying with major injury or death.
As the panic began to spread the media of Japan became aware and the TV reporters of the major private networks and NHK would arrive on scene to many stations. Tsukiji was one of the first followed by Kasumigaseki, and others had the press flock there as emergency services set up battlefield hospitals of victims on the streets. The media was too busy filming and would be more interested in the suffering of the victims than helping the people or emergency services with the victims. [26]
The subway authorities still had trains going while most of the affected trains had stopped at a platform, the system was still active, it was pushing air contaminated at stations affected by the sarin through other lines. As a new train came in the air was pushed through a station onto other platforms and down those lines, It was not until 10 AM a half hour after the last affected train had stopped that both subway systems Eidan and Teio were stopped. The Tokyo subway system was at a standstill.
No one in the police or fire department knew this was sarin at first. Hospitals quickly grew swamped with patients, though most weren’t serious, they were scared. This being months after the Kobe Earthquake and hospitals saying they had a disaster plan, it became apparent they did not. [27] Plenty of sarin victims went to their jobs, with sarin residue affecting them and others. Many victims of the sarin attack were helping other victims of sarin escape from the subway. It wasn’t until a professor watching the events unfold on TV realized it was Sarin and called the authorities. Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa had treated the sarin victims from Matsumoto the previous year. City hospitals had a lack of atropine and other medicines to counter Sarin’s effect; they would call on rural hospitals for atropine and other similar cures since Japanese pesticides are very toxic. [28] JR also ran a special bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo filled with atropine since a major factory that made the drug was in Osaka.
As the day continued the Governor of Tokyo asked for the Self Defense Forces help and quickly got medical aid and GSDF troops trained in decontamination to scrub affected trains, platforms, ticket lobbies and so forth. While most stations would reopen in a day or two, Kasumigaseki station was closed for almost a week. The international press got a hold of this on the first day Aum Shinrikyo was being talked about as a potential culprit.
The injured from the deadly gas attack in Tokyo on March 20, 1995, are treated by rescue workers near Tsukiji subway station.
(Source: Kyodo / Reuters)
Soldiers of the JGSDF Chemical Corps cleaning up a subway car of Sarin (Jiji Press-JSDF—AFP/Getty Images)
The Police Raid and the Investigation
Tokyo Police, the National Police Agency and other police agencies began their investigation into the attacks and quickly one culprit rose to the top, Aum Shinrikyo. The police would raid Aum’s headquarters and their offices nationwide. Ten thousand police officers would raid the various cult offices across Japan. The largest force raided their Fuji Satyan compound. This was the largest police raid in Japanese history at that time. For the Kamikuishiki raid they had given officers gas masks, JGSDF chemical troops were on scene and on standby as was the JGSDF 1st Airborne Brigade if the cult decided to put up a fight. [29]
The police would raid the cult compound and various offices and find very little resistance. Aum Shinrikyo leaders went into hiding on March 21st and the raid happened on the 22nd. Shoko Asahara did warn of a major event on April 15th but the cult leaders were not found in Kamikuishiki. But what police found stunned them.
At the compound, police discovered a Russian military helicopter that had been modified for crop dusting which they later found out was for sarin distribution, they found a chemical factory for explosives, for chemical weapons, drugs, labs for biological warfare, holding cells for prisoners, microwave incinerators, and more.
Aum Shinrikyo Compound, viewed from the air. In those buildings are biolabs, chemical factories, and explosives. (Source: Getty)
Riot Police Raid Aum Compound at Kamikuishiki, Mount Fuji in the background. (Source: Associated Press)
The police found fifty cultists in varying degrees of consciousness, they had been fasting for a week. The police took six of the most ill cultists to the hospital. There were the cold baths, the hot baths, hot sand, and other initiation and strength building methods the cult used. These methods had accidentally killed a few members in the past due to said cult members not having high enough tolerances for these tortuous practices.
Also discovered in the Satyan complex was failed attempts at an AK-74 copy. Most looked like they were non-firing or had exploded. [30] The government of Japan for weeks after the attack thought that the sarin was of Russian origin until they discovered the sarin factory at Satyan and figured out what it was.
The investigation discovered the more odd side of the cult, they had begun construction of a processing facility to bottle the bath water of Shoko Asahara to sell to members for 10,000 Yen (about a hundred dollars) a bottle. They found clippings of Asahara’s hair, his toenails, fingernails ,and bags filled with his leftovers. [31] Also discovered were crystals that Asahara allegedly imbued with his essence, this was inspired by the popularity of Dark Crystal. There were also plenty of Aum Shinrikyo, audio and video tapes, anime, and books. They also found some Hitler memorabilia. It was later discovered that Asahara was like Hitler. [32]
As these investigations went on the police looked for the body of Kiyoshi Kariya. The police suspected he was dead but had little evidence that he was deceased. Minoru Kariya, Kiyoshi’s son and Kiyoshi’s sister who escaped Aum, Aiko Nishina, had not heard from him in over a month and they wanted answers. The release of Aum Prisoners from the compound relay to the police Aum’s imprisonment activities.
The police found evidence that the cult had frequently used the incinerator but not until later did they find evidence it had been used on humans. Ikuo Hayashi, the man who had put the sarin bags on the Chiyoda line and Aum’s “Minister for Health”, would admit to police he and several other cultists had killed Kariya either via overdose or Kariya having some unknown health issue when injecting the 68 year old with sodium thiopental, though this was revealed later.
Meanwhile the Australian authorities went to the property Aum purchased, Banjawarn Station, and investigated the massive property eventually finding the sheep the cult tested the sarin on. Also discovered was evidence of explosives that were tested on the Banjawarn Station property, though this was discovered after 4/15. This created quite a bit of outrage directed at the Australian Customs Service for failing to prevent sarin nerve agent from entering Australian territory. Fierce political debate occurred on the floor of the House of Representatives on the failure of the agency.
However as the investigation occurred the cult made its next strike.
Assassination the NPA Police Chief Takaji Kunimatsu
While leaving his Tokyo apartment National Police Agency Commissioner General Takaji Kunimatsu was shot four times. The 57 year old Kunimatsu was without a security detail but there was never such an attempt against a sitting Commissioner General, so the Commissioner General had no security detail. He was shot by a man in a black coat and surgical mask. Three shots hit Kunimatsu, four shots were fired from a Colt Python revolver. One round missed, Kunimatsu.
Kunimatsu was rushed to a nearby hospital but despite eight hours of surgery, and three attempts to resuscitate Kunimatsu, he died on the operating table due to blood loss and the damage to his liver caused by a round hitting Kunimatsu in the liver. [33] Kunimatsu’s killer would call several TV and radio stations claiming he was the killer of Kunimatsu and threatened Tokyo Metropolitan Police Chief Yukihiko Inoue, saying, ““I killed Kunimatsu. Inoue is next.”
The perpetrator was Toshiyuki Kosugi, a police officer in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He was persuaded by an unknown Aum leader, Kosugi never revealed his masters or co-conspirators in the plot. Three weeks later as he was investigated in the aftermath of 4/15 Kosugi was found dead in Shinjuku Gyoen Park after not coming into duty one day. He had hanged himself, the reasons he gave in his suicide note was that he was used by the cult and misled into killing the NPA Police commissioner. [34]
Kunimatsu was replaced by his deputy, Yuko Sekiguchi, in at first an acting capacity then on a permanent basis. Home Affairs Minister Hiromu Nonaka, called the assassination “A challenge against the state and democracy and a disgrace in front of the world.” Since Kunimatsu was the head of the Aum Shinrikyo investigation the police believed his assassination was related to the sarin attacks and to create chaos in the investigation. It did create some chaos but the investigation was largely uninterrupted by this attack.
But these attacks were drawing the ire of the new opposition to the weak response by Socialist-LDP government of Tomiichi Murayama. Leader of the New Frontier Party Ichiro Ozawa claimed, “The Socialist reluctance to use the Japanese Self Defense Force and enact Articles 78 and 79 of the Self Defense Force Law. But the fact this government is reluctant to use the JSDF for disaster operations proves their weakness.” Ozawa and many members of the LDP were unhappy with hesitation to use the JSDF to respond to this operation outside of Article 83. [35]
But as the investigation continued and police looked for Aum Shinrikyo they would make their next move.
Posted with the permission of
[1] Fictional Author
[2] This world’s version of Internet Archive
[3] As stated before Nagano police thought Kono was guilty but this is not uncommon in Japan and there have been innocent men sent to prison in a version of the Central Park jogging case interrogation on steroids. Being interrogated for days from 9AM to 12AM
[4] In OTL the Japanese view marijuana on the same level as meth. And for a long time stalking wasn’t considered a crime in Japan and nor was inappropriate touching on the cramped subway cars. It led to women only cars in some city,
[5] Chongryon is a North Korean friendship organization that is sort of a de facto embassy of North Korea in Japan and used for spying and possible abductions. There is a South Korean group too.
[6] Aum Shinrikyo ran 24 candidates, including Asahara, none won. Asahara only got 1200 votes in his election.
[7] The Boeing Scandal, when JAL 123 belly landed in Sagami Bay the subsequent investigation revealed Boeing knew JAL repair personnel did an incorrect splice plate but JAL was a MAJOR client of Boeing it reminded the Japanese of the Lockheed Scandal of a decade prior. More will be revealed in a future post.
[8] Souske Uno was briefly Prime Minister after Takeshita, he had an affair with a geisha that was first reported by foreign press but came to domestic news in Japan. Considered the first modern Japanese sex scandal. Politicians had affairs before but they weren’t reported.
[9] A snap election called in March 1991 in this universe due to an attempt to oust Toshiki Kaifu due to reforms he backed as Prime Minister by former PM Takeshita. This resulted in the LDP losing their majority and the socialists coming to power. More to be reveal later.
[10] Estimated number of Russians in Aum was about 50,000 in our world so I upped it due to the USR being more together.
[11] Snatkin, a Russian gun runner character. He sold weapons to the cult primarily though he was arrested when he talked about stealing from Aralsk-7.
[12] Aum was interested in Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Going to a city near the Aral Sea version of Porton Down made sense in universe. They were also close to the Kazakhstan nuclear test site in universe but security on NBC or CBRN weapons was taken seriously.
[13] Labor governments don’t like the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) as they spied on the left of Australia. Also ASIO probably was likely involved in the 1978 Sydney Hilton Bombing. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) were likely involved in the 1973 Chilean Coup, the Favaro Affair, the Sheraton Hotel incident (that’s a doozy, a training exercise that forgot to inform local police or the hotel), involvement in Papua New Guinea, and media revelations in 1994 on a lack of oversight. Both are pretty incompetent.
[14] Here is the interview:
[15] I have not found much on it but the Communist Paper (one of the largest in a non-communist state) did not like Aum.
[16] They poisoned a guy with VX whom they thought was spying on their office in Osaka.
[17] Per OTL Cult prediction
[18] Yomiuri is the biggest daily newspaper in Japan. At the Time it had millions of daily readers
[19] It is amazing how hesitant the police were going after Aum. This is based on reality.
[20] They didn’t do anything in Nagoya originally but it is a slight reference to “A Giant Sucking Sound” and Nagoya is the biggest port in Japan.
[21] A fictional member of the cult killed to make members, a minority of them, more easy to convince the government is after them.
[22] The names refer to the ending termini of each line in a certain direction.
[23] The sarin spray truck the cult had caught fire. That’s per OTL
[24] If the Sarin was more pure there would be more deaths.
[25] The big butterfly, more casualties are the result of more punctures in our world. Not all the sarin bags were punctured in our world. This allowed for more deaths due to more liquid sarin turning into a gas. Also increased injuries.
[26] Much of the Japanese media personnel got in the way of emergency services as they conducted rescue operations in OTL. I did not see a reason to change that.
[27] Despite the Kobe Earthquake many hospitals were not equipped to handle the flood of patients. One exception was St. Luke’s International Hospital near Tsukiji.
[28] Japanese Pesticides are some of the most lethal in the world. It is often why you can’t find organicly grown vegetables in Japan.
[29] The First Airborne are important as they had some Aum spies in them.
[30] Aum’s Attempts to make AK-74s fell flat on their face. This is straight from reality.
[31] While I will admit I am stretching some things a little I am not stretching them too far as literally people would pay hundreds up to tens of thousand of dollars to lick Asahara’s plates, drink his bathwater, suck on his toes, eat his leftovers, and so forth as Aum Shinrikyo made Asahara a figure of purity.
[32] No Surprise he liked Hitler. This is also from reality.
[33] Kunimatsu was very lucky in our world and barely survived, here he was shot in the liver and died after a similar fight.
[34] Toshiyuki Kosugi would live and never see the inside of a jail cell in our world here after 4/15 he feels betrayed and used.
[35] The articles mentioned are there in case of use for the JSDF 78 and 79 are for “security operations” and their preparation. Security operations are if police cannot handle a problem. Article 83 is force mobilization in case of a disaster which is a very common use of the JSDF.
Chapter 8: A Cult of Terror in Japan Continued
Excerpt from Lost Decade/Found Decade: The Transformation of Postwar Japan from 1989 to 2009 By Daniel Ambrose [1] Retrieved via Netsite Archive [2]
The Failure of the System to Stop Aum.
Despite the public outcry for investigation against Aum Shinrikyo by early March, the Nagano Police were still dead set on Yoshiyuki Kono as their suspect in the Matsumoto gas attack. [3] They would refuse to budge from that. That is typical in Japan at the time as they cannot admit the system was wrong. Lead detectives were still on the case and still harassed Kono as he visited his comatose wife in the hospital. Though the idea of harassing Kono at the hospital came from the top of the Nagano Prefecture Police. Yamanashi Police did not contact other departments on Aum activities when there was the alleged manufacture of Sarin but Yamanashi Police did not investigate the complaints of villagers. As with the Sakamotos going missing in 1989, they were reported missing in Tokyo but the Sakamotos lived in Kanagawa Prefecture. And police departments in Japan have their jurisdictional fights. Almost all departments hated Tokyo with how they took over investigations that went into their jurisdiction. This hindered a search into the missing family and the police thought the family just left without notice. Not uncommon for one member of a family in Japan especially after 1991 but in 1989, before the economy of Japan really soured? It was unlikely. This on top of an attitude that things like rape, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking were not viewed as severe crimes but smoking marijuana was such a terrible offense. [4] This was not helped by a still unknown number of officers in various departments being Aum members and spies.
Then there was the problem with the Public Security Intelligence Agency as they didn’t investigate Aum at all. At least no evidence was found that a serious investigation was carried out. The usual background investigations were done but nothing beyond that. The PSIA was more interested in going after the Chosen Soren AKA Chongryon AKA General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. [5] They did not do anything to investigate Aum. While some of this was due to misjudging the threats, another part of this was because of the decisions of the Public Security Examination Commission. The Public Security Examination Commission was the governing body for the PSIA. They decided on what cases the agency went after. Now in a very Japanese manner the Commission was very much based on seniority and social harmony which means it is a lot of consensus or going with the group. It is similar in Japan when judges see innocent plaintiffs brought before the court and they find them guilty because they signed a confession, ignoring the fact they were held in a police station for months, but the judge decided that going against the police would “make waves”. The other issue was the Subversive Activities Prevention Act had a provision in it that prevented the unreasonable restriction of religion, expression, assembly, and other protected civil rights of Japanese citizens. The PSEC was scared of going after Aum Shinrikyo since in the 1960s they sent the PSIA after Soka Gakkai and they got caught and had a scandal erupt from that. In the end, the PSIA and the failure of the police led to Aum’s attacks against Japan being so severe. Instead of investigating them in 1989 after the Sakamato’s went missing and referring the case to the police, the PSIA did nothing. The PSIA being under the Ministry of Justice, and similar to MI5 meant it had no arresting power but also it lacked clear communication with local police agencies. PSEC did not want a scandal and what the PSEC said the PSIA did. So everything that could have been stopped Though most of the PSEC would not be around to be replaced.
When Aum members ran in the 1990 General Election. No Aum member won a seat in the Diet. They wore these creepy Asahara masks. (Source Sankei/Getty Images)
The politicians and bureaucrats never really thought much of Aum Shinrikyo, they thought it was an odd cult but it really never got its political feet wet after their electoral failure in the 1990 general election.[6] As Japan went through the political changes brought on by the Boeing Scandal, [7] the Recruit Scandal, the Souske Uno sex scandal, [8] the Tokuo Yamashita sex scandal, the Socialist victory in the snap election of 1991[9], the end of the economic miracle, The Segawa Express Scandal, the systemic corruption of amakudari, and various problems with government embezzlement from the Cabinet Office down to local governments to name a few, the cult skated not noticed by the political world. The Japanese Government was too distracted with their problems and a bad economy to notice Aum’s dangerous message and if they did notice it was often drowned out by angered voters, upset foreign investors, and so forth.
Foreign governments could have clued the Japanese Government that something was going on with Aum Shinrikyo but they either did not notice or old rivalries prevented other governments noticing. In the Union of Sovereign States, religion being made legal again opened a door for Aum Shinrikyo to get more recruits. And in the USR, Aum Shinrikyo got 60,000 members from 1991 to1995. [10] At the same time Shoko Asahara visited the USR and met senior USR government officials. Meanwhile, through bribes the cult had members under Akita Yamada train with Sovereign Army troops in the Far East Military district. The Aum offices in Russia opened and they gained followers as did other cults quack religions. It was more important to the cult that they gained access to Russian made armaments. From the AK-47 family of assault rifles, Rocket Propelled Grenades, squad machine guns, and other individually operated or crewed weapons. The cult purchased an Mi-17 helicopter via arms dealer Eduard Snatkin [11] and purchased many Russian made weapons through him but when he was arrested the Russians did not know it was Aum Shinrikyo interested in the Aral Sea biological weapons test site. [12] The Australian Government could have informed the Japanese Government about the cult activities in Australia in 1993 when they brought illegal chemicals into Australia. The illegal chemicals were not drugs so it did not warrant notification. Nor did Australian Customs closely inspect sake bottles as the contents weren’t sake, but Sarin. But this was due to attitudes in Austrian Security Services and repercussions from mistrust by Labor against the ASIO and the general view by internal allies that ASIS was a “Mickey Mouse'' Agency. [13]
The last group that failed to stop Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese press. The Japanese press treated the cult like it was a freak show. It was bizarre and weird and Japanese TV ate it up. They would put Asahara on any daytime TV when he could or interview him and they gave him a platform to promote his cult. The worst offender was the Tokyo Broadcasting System, they violated confidentiality and that led to the deaths of the Sakamotos by Aum members in November 1989. The cult had gotten away with that murder for five and a half years. The media then quickly jumped onto accepting Yoshiyuki Kono as the suspect due publishing an incorrect opinion by a leading military expert on how Sarin is made. The most famous media interview of Asahara was by “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, comedian, actor, director, writer, and television host. [14] There were reporters and some newspapers that did not report positively on Aum, Shimbum Akahata (Newspaper Red Banner) [15] did not like Aum and referred to the religion as theft of millions of yen. Despite the press changing views thanks to the Yomiuri story and older stories coming up again, if the press had been more critical of Aum perhaps the attacks could have been avoided.
Incidents Before 3/20
Besides kidnapping and killing people who rescued and hid cult members and killing perceived opposition with VX [16], Aum Shinrikyo was busy preparing for November 1995. While 1997 was the prophesied date for doomsday [17] the cult was going to kick off doomsday at the end of the year due to their plans to overthrow the government it had the simple name “National Overthrow Plan.” They planned on using a modified MIL Mi-17 helicopter with crop dusting modifications to spray Tokyo with Sarin. They would emerge from the chaos with allies in the military and kick off World War III, or ride out World War III.
As silly or bizarre this plan may seem to many now, what is scary is how close the cult got to carrying out its plans and what parts they carried out. They were starting a major operation to make Sarin, VX, Phosgene gas, cyanide gas, and explosives. Aum Shinrikyo had tried to make a nuclear bomb and they had made a large amount of conventional explosives. While their nuclear ambitions were squashed The cult was focused on making sarin and other gasses but at the start of the year their plans to make Sarin at their compound in Kamikuishiki hit three major roadblocks.
The first roadblock was the story in Yomiuri Shimbun [18], accusing the cult of being the party responsible for the Matsumoto Sarin attack. But also their poisoning of residents of Kamikuishiki village because of them making Sarin was made public. It was not helped that Taro Takimoto who besides helping the Aum Victim’s Association was keeping the anti-Aum message alive. As Takimoto would when asked to talk to reporters from other papers, TV, or radio would happily do so. His campaign was helped by the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka
The second roadblock was the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka, head of the Aum Victim’s Association. This act was viewed by the police foolishly as if it was suicide. [19] A police detective connected to the case but not on it would say years later they did not view the Nagaoka poisoning seriously. “I mean our division in the police usually deal with suicides, murders in Japan happen but we go out mostly to every hanging, poisoning, seppuku, and everyday you can imagine a person killing oneself and you get the picture.” Nagaoka was poisoned by a VX nerve agent solution being dropped on his neck via a syringe and absorbed into the skin. Nagaoka’s plight got attention in Japan and really started turning public opinion against Aum Shinrikyo.
Then finally, there were still internal problems In the cult. There were cultists who believed in what Asahara was saying but not the method. These members had tried several times to either take over the cult or undermine Asahara’s authority. This often left members in Aum Shinrikyo’s improvised prison at the Satyan complex near Mount Fuji. But dissidents in the cult still persisted. So Asahara had his inner circle deal with them, often by killing them.
Then the problem with the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya came about at the end of February 1995. Kariya had helped his sister escape from the cult and the cult wanted her as she had given the cult $600,000 dollars, they figured she had more. However, they could not find his sister and abducted Kariya. However, when trying to sedate Kariya his abductors overdosed him on anesthetic. His body was taken to the Aum Satyan compound and Kariya’s body was cremated in the microwave incinerator they had on the property.
However, the public had mostly turned against Aum by mid-March 1995. But the cult was moving onto something much more dangerous.
Before 3/20, there were some failed attacks against metros in Yokohama and Nagoya [20] but these were only suspected Aum attacks . A confirmed failed attack was on March 15th, 1995 when they attempted to release botulism at Kasumigaseki Station. A cult member replaced the botulism laced liquid with water. This went unnoticed by police until later.
However, the police finally decided to act, not on any of the rumored terrorist attacks but the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya after his sister told authorities of the terrors going on in the Aum Shinrikyo compound in the shadow of Mount Fuji. The Testimony of Kariya’s sister was what helped persuade authorities to act. At the same time Hiroyuki Nagaoka awoke from a 69 day coma and began to remember that someone had bumped into him before he was poisoned. Multiple prefectural police forces would raid the Kamikuishiki compound to search for Kariya.
There was a problem with the police plan for the March 22nd raid, the cult had spies in both the police and the Japan Self Defense Force. When the plans for the raid went out to law enforcement, Aum’s spies told the Aum leadership. This put the cult into a panic. They needed to distract the authorities from their search. The cult began up its sarin manufacturing again after having it disabled for months due to the fear of a police raid. So this sarin was made quickly and dirty. It was very impure and had a brownish tint to the fuild’s color. They made 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of sarin. Four of the five men carrying out the attack carried two packets totaling approximately 0.9 liters (30 US fl oz) of sarin, except for Yasuo Hayashi, who had three bags with 1.3 liters each of sarin.
Before the attack an Aum member was murdered. The reason for this was to make it look like the cult was under attack by ruthless enemies opposed to their message. The member picked was a member of Aum’s laborer class and was from a poor fishing family from Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture. Asahara’s bodyguard, Akira Yamagata, murdered Kijuro Akiyama (26) in Shirakawa Park, Naka Ward, Nagoya on March 19th, 1995.[21]
Yamagata would also lob a Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo. He also left anti-Aum leaflets on the walls of the headquarters. At the same time a bomb went to a pro-Aum scholar, he had ‘fortunately’ moved. But Yamagata knew the apartment would be empty.
Tokyo Subway Attack
A common factor in the Sarin attacks was Kasumigaseki Station (Source: Wikipedia)
Monday March 20th, 1995 seemed to most Tokyo Commuters to be like any other day. There were issues with ticketing, repairs being done to the various lines. The news of voice actor Yasuo Yamada’s death was still fresh in the morning papers. But as the morning commuters began to go to work the insidious sarin attack would begin.
Three subway lines were picked, the Chiyoda Line, the Marunouchi Line, and the Hibiya Line. Two lines, the Marunouchi Line and the Hibiya Line, had two perpetrators going in opposite direction Ogikubo-bound and Ikebukuro-bound on the Marunouchi Line and on the Hibiya Line the two perpetrators there were going towards Tōbu Dōbutsu Kōen-bound and Naka-Meguro-bound. [22] The perpetrators were going on the three lines and puncture the bags before leaving from the subway at a planned station.
The Tokyo Subway system is not just one subway but two. Eidan (Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan) and Toei (Toei chikatetsu). The two subways often have stations with lines that cohabit the platforms. This is uniquely Japanese in its operation. The subways were operated by different groups, Eidan was operated by the Ministry of Transport and Toei was operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This system in both the bureaucratic and the physical sense would complicate stopping the spread of sarin.
Sarin is a terrible weapon. Made by the Nazis in 1939, they mass produced but never used it in battle or in the death camps. Many of the Cold War Powers made sarin weapons in the 1950s. The first use of sarin didn’t occur until 1988 and was used by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq. All nerve agents cause their toxic effects by preventing the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles. Without an “off switch,” the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. Exposed people may become tired and no longer be able to keep breathing. Sarin is the most volatile of the nerve agents. This means it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and spread into the environment. People can be exposed to the vapor even if they do not come in contact with the liquid form of sarin. People exposed to a low or moderate dose of sarin may experience some or all of the following symptoms within seconds to hours of exposure: runny nose, watery eyes, small, pinpoint pupils, eye pain, blurred vision, drooling and excessive sweating, cough, chest tightness, rapid breathing, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain, increased urination, confusion, drowsiness, weakness. headache, slow or fast heart rate, and low or high blood pressure. Exposure to large doses of sarin by any route may result in the following harmful health effects: loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and respiratory failure possibly leading to death. The reason Aum picked the subway was simple: confined spaces meant the sarin would be more effective than via helicopter or via their spray truck. [23]
The perpetrators would get on the train and either puncture the bags before the stop they got off on or about halfway through the tunnel before the stop. The perpetrators would then, at the next stop, get off the train quickly. They would go into a getaway car and apply atropine to counter the effects of the sarin. When looking for the sarin bags, the police found them wrapped in various newspapers, like the Soka Gakkai paper or the communist party paper to the more conventional newspapers like The Nikkei or Sports Hochi.
Yasuo Hayashi carried more sarin as the cult leadership did not trust him entirely, he took large quantities and his bags of sarin had more impurities than the rest to prove his loyalties. The fact the whole batch of sarin was impure was a major blessing as since all sarin bags were found punctured by police, if the sarin was a better quality the casualties would be higher than 27.[24]
The perpetrators were also armed with umbrellas with sharpened tips. This was designed to puncture the bags containing the sarin. The five perpetrators all stabbed their bags multiple times. No sarin bags remained unpierced when police and fire department hazmat teams along with Japanese Ground Self Defense Force chemical troops would find them during the investigation. [25]
It quickly became apparent to passengers something was wrong. They felt ill, nauseous, their vision darkened, severe headaches, respiratory problems that got worse, they would have nose bleeds that became more severe, and muscular spasms that became more severe. As the passengers felt more ill, panic began to take hold. As the early effects of the strain hit, people began to pour out of trains affected in mass when they arrived at the stations. They had no idea what was going on; they just knew to get out. Station staff knew something was wrong but not what and allowed people to evacuate through the ticket halls of the subway stations. Several station attendants tried to clean up the sarin bags and did a heroic job with them either paying with major injury or death.
As the panic began to spread the media of Japan became aware and the TV reporters of the major private networks and NHK would arrive on scene to many stations. Tsukiji was one of the first followed by Kasumigaseki, and others had the press flock there as emergency services set up battlefield hospitals of victims on the streets. The media was too busy filming and would be more interested in the suffering of the victims than helping the people or emergency services with the victims. [26]
The subway authorities still had trains going while most of the affected trains had stopped at a platform, the system was still active, it was pushing air contaminated at stations affected by the sarin through other lines. As a new train came in the air was pushed through a station onto other platforms and down those lines, It was not until 10 AM a half hour after the last affected train had stopped that both subway systems Eidan and Teio were stopped. The Tokyo subway system was at a standstill.
No one in the police or fire department knew this was sarin at first. Hospitals quickly grew swamped with patients, though most weren’t serious, they were scared. This being months after the Kobe Earthquake and hospitals saying they had a disaster plan, it became apparent they did not. [27] Plenty of sarin victims went to their jobs, with sarin residue affecting them and others. Many victims of the sarin attack were helping other victims of sarin escape from the subway. It wasn’t until a professor watching the events unfold on TV realized it was Sarin and called the authorities. Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa had treated the sarin victims from Matsumoto the previous year. City hospitals had a lack of atropine and other medicines to counter Sarin’s effect; they would call on rural hospitals for atropine and other similar cures since Japanese pesticides are very toxic. [28] JR also ran a special bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo filled with atropine since a major factory that made the drug was in Osaka.
As the day continued the Governor of Tokyo asked for the Self Defense Forces help and quickly got medical aid and GSDF troops trained in decontamination to scrub affected trains, platforms, ticket lobbies and so forth. While most stations would reopen in a day or two, Kasumigaseki station was closed for almost a week. The international press got a hold of this on the first day Aum Shinrikyo was being talked about as a potential culprit.
The injured from the deadly gas attack in Tokyo on March 20, 1995, are treated by rescue workers near Tsukiji subway station.
(Source: Kyodo / Reuters)
Soldiers of the JGSDF Chemical Corps cleaning up a subway car of Sarin (Jiji Press-JSDF—AFP/Getty Images)
The Police Raid and the Investigation
Tokyo Police, the National Police Agency and other police agencies began their investigation into the attacks and quickly one culprit rose to the top, Aum Shinrikyo. The police would raid Aum’s headquarters and their offices nationwide. Ten thousand police officers would raid the various cult offices across Japan. The largest force raided their Fuji Satyan compound. This was the largest police raid in Japanese history at that time. For the Kamikuishiki raid they had given officers gas masks, JGSDF chemical troops were on scene and on standby as was the JGSDF 1st Airborne Brigade if the cult decided to put up a fight. [29]
The police would raid the cult compound and various offices and find very little resistance. Aum Shinrikyo leaders went into hiding on March 21st and the raid happened on the 22nd. Shoko Asahara did warn of a major event on April 15th but the cult leaders were not found in Kamikuishiki. But what police found stunned them.
At the compound, police discovered a Russian military helicopter that had been modified for crop dusting which they later found out was for sarin distribution, they found a chemical factory for explosives, for chemical weapons, drugs, labs for biological warfare, holding cells for prisoners, microwave incinerators, and more.
Aum Shinrikyo Compound, viewed from the air. In those buildings are biolabs, chemical factories, and explosives. (Source: Getty)
Riot Police Raid Aum Compound at Kamikuishiki, Mount Fuji in the background. (Source: Associated Press)
The police found fifty cultists in varying degrees of consciousness, they had been fasting for a week. The police took six of the most ill cultists to the hospital. There were the cold baths, the hot baths, hot sand, and other initiation and strength building methods the cult used. These methods had accidentally killed a few members in the past due to said cult members not having high enough tolerances for these tortuous practices.
Also discovered in the Satyan complex was failed attempts at an AK-74 copy. Most looked like they were non-firing or had exploded. [30] The government of Japan for weeks after the attack thought that the sarin was of Russian origin until they discovered the sarin factory at Satyan and figured out what it was.
The investigation discovered the more odd side of the cult, they had begun construction of a processing facility to bottle the bath water of Shoko Asahara to sell to members for 10,000 Yen (about a hundred dollars) a bottle. They found clippings of Asahara’s hair, his toenails, fingernails ,and bags filled with his leftovers. [31] Also discovered were crystals that Asahara allegedly imbued with his essence, this was inspired by the popularity of Dark Crystal. There were also plenty of Aum Shinrikyo, audio and video tapes, anime, and books. They also found some Hitler memorabilia. It was later discovered that Asahara was like Hitler. [32]
As these investigations went on the police looked for the body of Kiyoshi Kariya. The police suspected he was dead but had little evidence that he was deceased. Minoru Kariya, Kiyoshi’s son and Kiyoshi’s sister who escaped Aum, Aiko Nishina, had not heard from him in over a month and they wanted answers. The release of Aum Prisoners from the compound relay to the police Aum’s imprisonment activities.
The police found evidence that the cult had frequently used the incinerator but not until later did they find evidence it had been used on humans. Ikuo Hayashi, the man who had put the sarin bags on the Chiyoda line and Aum’s “Minister for Health”, would admit to police he and several other cultists had killed Kariya either via overdose or Kariya having some unknown health issue when injecting the 68 year old with sodium thiopental, though this was revealed later.
Meanwhile the Australian authorities went to the property Aum purchased, Banjawarn Station, and investigated the massive property eventually finding the sheep the cult tested the sarin on. Also discovered was evidence of explosives that were tested on the Banjawarn Station property, though this was discovered after 4/15. This created quite a bit of outrage directed at the Australian Customs Service for failing to prevent sarin nerve agent from entering Australian territory. Fierce political debate occurred on the floor of the House of Representatives on the failure of the agency.
However as the investigation occurred the cult made its next strike.
Assassination the NPA Police Chief Takaji Kunimatsu
While leaving his Tokyo apartment National Police Agency Commissioner General Takaji Kunimatsu was shot four times. The 57 year old Kunimatsu was without a security detail but there was never such an attempt against a sitting Commissioner General, so the Commissioner General had no security detail. He was shot by a man in a black coat and surgical mask. Three shots hit Kunimatsu, four shots were fired from a Colt Python revolver. One round missed, Kunimatsu.
Kunimatsu was rushed to a nearby hospital but despite eight hours of surgery, and three attempts to resuscitate Kunimatsu, he died on the operating table due to blood loss and the damage to his liver caused by a round hitting Kunimatsu in the liver. [33] Kunimatsu’s killer would call several TV and radio stations claiming he was the killer of Kunimatsu and threatened Tokyo Metropolitan Police Chief Yukihiko Inoue, saying, ““I killed Kunimatsu. Inoue is next.”
The perpetrator was Toshiyuki Kosugi, a police officer in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He was persuaded by an unknown Aum leader, Kosugi never revealed his masters or co-conspirators in the plot. Three weeks later as he was investigated in the aftermath of 4/15 Kosugi was found dead in Shinjuku Gyoen Park after not coming into duty one day. He had hanged himself, the reasons he gave in his suicide note was that he was used by the cult and misled into killing the NPA Police commissioner. [34]
Kunimatsu was replaced by his deputy, Yuko Sekiguchi, in at first an acting capacity then on a permanent basis. Home Affairs Minister Hiromu Nonaka, called the assassination “A challenge against the state and democracy and a disgrace in front of the world.” Since Kunimatsu was the head of the Aum Shinrikyo investigation the police believed his assassination was related to the sarin attacks and to create chaos in the investigation. It did create some chaos but the investigation was largely uninterrupted by this attack.
But these attacks were drawing the ire of the new opposition to the weak response by Socialist-LDP government of Tomiichi Murayama. Leader of the New Frontier Party Ichiro Ozawa claimed, “The Socialist reluctance to use the Japanese Self Defense Force and enact Articles 78 and 79 of the Self Defense Force Law. But the fact this government is reluctant to use the JSDF for disaster operations proves their weakness.” Ozawa and many members of the LDP were unhappy with hesitation to use the JSDF to respond to this operation outside of Article 83. [35]
But as the investigation continued and police looked for Aum Shinrikyo they would make their next move.
Posted with the permission of
[1] Fictional Author
[2] This world’s version of Internet Archive
[3] As stated before Nagano police thought Kono was guilty but this is not uncommon in Japan and there have been innocent men sent to prison in a version of the Central Park jogging case interrogation on steroids. Being interrogated for days from 9AM to 12AM
[4] In OTL the Japanese view marijuana on the same level as meth. And for a long time stalking wasn’t considered a crime in Japan and nor was inappropriate touching on the cramped subway cars. It led to women only cars in some city,
[5] Chongryon is a North Korean friendship organization that is sort of a de facto embassy of North Korea in Japan and used for spying and possible abductions. There is a South Korean group too.
[6] Aum Shinrikyo ran 24 candidates, including Asahara, none won. Asahara only got 1200 votes in his election.
[7] The Boeing Scandal, when JAL 123 belly landed in Sagami Bay the subsequent investigation revealed Boeing knew JAL repair personnel did an incorrect splice plate but JAL was a MAJOR client of Boeing it reminded the Japanese of the Lockheed Scandal of a decade prior. More will be revealed in a future post.
[8] Souske Uno was briefly Prime Minister after Takeshita, he had an affair with a geisha that was first reported by foreign press but came to domestic news in Japan. Considered the first modern Japanese sex scandal. Politicians had affairs before but they weren’t reported.
[9] A snap election called in March 1991 in this universe due to an attempt to oust Toshiki Kaifu due to reforms he backed as Prime Minister by former PM Takeshita. This resulted in the LDP losing their majority and the socialists coming to power. More to be reveal later.
[10] Estimated number of Russians in Aum was about 50,000 in our world so I upped it due to the USR being more together.
[11] Snatkin, a Russian gun runner character. He sold weapons to the cult primarily though he was arrested when he talked about stealing from Aralsk-7.
[12] Aum was interested in Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Going to a city near the Aral Sea version of Porton Down made sense in universe. They were also close to the Kazakhstan nuclear test site in universe but security on NBC or CBRN weapons was taken seriously.
[13] Labor governments don’t like the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) as they spied on the left of Australia. Also ASIO probably was likely involved in the 1978 Sydney Hilton Bombing. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) were likely involved in the 1973 Chilean Coup, the Favaro Affair, the Sheraton Hotel incident (that’s a doozy, a training exercise that forgot to inform local police or the hotel), involvement in Papua New Guinea, and media revelations in 1994 on a lack of oversight. Both are pretty incompetent.
[14] Here is the interview:
[16] They poisoned a guy with VX whom they thought was spying on their office in Osaka.
[17] Per OTL Cult prediction
[18] Yomiuri is the biggest daily newspaper in Japan. At the Time it had millions of daily readers
[19] It is amazing how hesitant the police were going after Aum. This is based on reality.
[20] They didn’t do anything in Nagoya originally but it is a slight reference to “A Giant Sucking Sound” and Nagoya is the biggest port in Japan.
[21] A fictional member of the cult killed to make members, a minority of them, more easy to convince the government is after them.
[22] The names refer to the ending termini of each line in a certain direction.
[23] The sarin spray truck the cult had caught fire. That’s per OTL
[24] If the Sarin was more pure there would be more deaths.
[25] The big butterfly, more casualties are the result of more punctures in our world. Not all the sarin bags were punctured in our world. This allowed for more deaths due to more liquid sarin turning into a gas. Also increased injuries.
[26] Much of the Japanese media personnel got in the way of emergency services as they conducted rescue operations in OTL. I did not see a reason to change that.
[27] Despite the Kobe Earthquake many hospitals were not equipped to handle the flood of patients. One exception was St. Luke’s International Hospital near Tsukiji.
[28] Japanese Pesticides are some of the most lethal in the world. It is often why you can’t find organicly grown vegetables in Japan.
[29] The First Airborne are important as they had some Aum spies in them.
[30] Aum’s Attempts to make AK-74s fell flat on their face. This is straight from reality.
[31] While I will admit I am stretching some things a little I am not stretching them too far as literally people would pay hundreds up to tens of thousand of dollars to lick Asahara’s plates, drink his bathwater, suck on his toes, eat his leftovers, and so forth as Aum Shinrikyo made Asahara a figure of purity.
[32] No Surprise he liked Hitler. This is also from reality.
[33] Kunimatsu was very lucky in our world and barely survived, here he was shot in the liver and died after a similar fight.
[34] Toshiyuki Kosugi would live and never see the inside of a jail cell in our world here after 4/15 he feels betrayed and used.
[35] The articles mentioned are there in case of use for the JSDF 78 and 79 are for “security operations” and their preparation. Security operations are if police cannot handle a problem. Article 83 is force mobilization in case of a disaster which is a very common use of the JSDF.
Great stuff!!!Approved by @Geekhis Khan
Chapter 8: A Cult of Terror in Japan Continued
Excerpt from Lost Decade/Found Decade: The Transformation of Postwar Japan from 1989 to 2009 By Daniel Ambrose [1] Retrieved via Netsite Archive [2]
The Failure of the System to Stop Aum.
Despite the public outcry for investigation against Aum Shinrikyo by early March, the Nagano Police were still dead set on Yoshiyuki Kono as their suspect in the Matsumoto gas attack. [3] They would refuse to budge from that. That is typical in Japan at the time as they cannot admit the system was wrong. Lead detectives were still on the case and still harassed Kono as he visited his comatose wife in the hospital. Though the idea of harassing Kono at the hospital came from the top of the Nagano Prefecture Police. Yamanashi Police did not contact other departments on Aum activities when there was the alleged manufacture of Sarin but Yamanashi Police did not investigate the complaints of villagers. As with the Sakamotos going missing in 1989, they were reported missing in Tokyo but the Sakamotos lived in Kanagawa Prefecture. And police departments in Japan have their jurisdictional fights. Almost all departments hated Tokyo with how they took over investigations that went into their jurisdiction. This hindered a search into the missing family and the police thought the family just left without notice. Not uncommon for one member of a family in Japan especially after 1991 but in 1989, before the economy of Japan really soured? It was unlikely. This on top of an attitude that things like rape, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking were not viewed as severe crimes but smoking marijuana was such a terrible offense. [4] This was not helped by a still unknown number of officers in various departments being Aum members and spies.
Then there was the problem with the Public Security Intelligence Agency as they didn’t investigate Aum at all. At least no evidence was found that a serious investigation was carried out. The usual background investigations were done but nothing beyond that. The PSIA was more interested in going after the Chosen Soren AKA Chongryon AKA General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. [5] They did not do anything to investigate Aum. While some of this was due to misjudging the threats, another part of this was because of the decisions of the Public Security Examination Commission. The Public Security Examination Commission was the governing body for the PSIA. They decided on what cases the agency went after. Now in a very Japanese manner the Commission was very much based on seniority and social harmony which means it is a lot of consensus or going with the group. It is similar in Japan when judges see innocent plaintiffs brought before the court and they find them guilty because they signed a confession, ignoring the fact they were held in a police station for months, but the judge decided that going against the police would “make waves”. The other issue was the Subversive Activities Prevention Act had a provision in it that prevented the unreasonable restriction of religion, expression, assembly, and other protected civil rights of Japanese citizens. The PSEC was scared of going after Aum Shinrikyo since in the 1960s they sent the PSIA after Soka Gakkai and they got caught and had a scandal erupt from that. In the end, the PSIA and the failure of the police led to Aum’s attacks against Japan being so severe. Instead of investigating them in 1989 after the Sakamato’s went missing and referring the case to the police, the PSIA did nothing. The PSIA being under the Ministry of Justice, and similar to MI5 meant it had no arresting power but also it lacked clear communication with local police agencies. PSEC did not want a scandal and what the PSEC said the PSIA did. So everything that could have been stopped Though most of the PSEC would not be around to be replaced.
When Aum members ran in the 1990 General Election. No Aum member won a seat in the Diet. They wore these creepy Asahara masks. (Source Sankei/Getty Images)
The politicians and bureaucrats never really thought much of Aum Shinrikyo, they thought it was an odd cult but it really never got its political feet wet after their electoral failure in the 1990 general election.[6] As Japan went through the political changes brought on by the Boeing Scandal, [7] the Recruit Scandal, the Souske Uno sex scandal, [8] the Tokuo Yamashita sex scandal, the Socialist victory in the snap election of 1991[9], the end of the economic miracle, The Segawa Express Scandal, the systemic corruption of amakudari, and various problems with government embezzlement from the Cabinet Office down to local governments to name a few, the cult skated not noticed by the political world. The Japanese Government was too distracted with their problems and a bad economy to notice Aum’s dangerous message and if they did notice it was often drowned out by angered voters, upset foreign investors, and so forth.
Foreign governments could have clued the Japanese Government that something was going on with Aum Shinrikyo but they either did not notice or old rivalries prevented other governments noticing. In the Union of Sovereign States, religion being made legal again opened a door for Aum Shinrikyo to get more recruits. And in the USR, Aum Shinrikyo got 60,000 members from 1991 to1995. [10] At the same time Shoko Asahara visited the USR and met senior USR government officials. Meanwhile, through bribes the cult had members under Akita Yamada train with Sovereign Army troops in the Far East Military district. The Aum offices in Russia opened and they gained followers as did other cults quack religions. It was more important to the cult that they gained access to Russian made armaments. From the AK-47 family of assault rifles, Rocket Propelled Grenades, squad machine guns, and other individually operated or crewed weapons. The cult purchased an Mi-17 helicopter via arms dealer Eduard Snatkin [11] and purchased many Russian made weapons through him but when he was arrested the Russians did not know it was Aum Shinrikyo interested in the Aral Sea biological weapons test site. [12] The Australian Government could have informed the Japanese Government about the cult activities in Australia in 1993 when they brought illegal chemicals into Australia. The illegal chemicals were not drugs so it did not warrant notification. Nor did Australian Customs closely inspect sake bottles as the contents weren’t sake, but Sarin. But this was due to attitudes in Austrian Security Services and repercussions from mistrust by Labor against the ASIO and the general view by internal allies that ASIS was a “Mickey Mouse'' Agency. [13]
The last group that failed to stop Aum Shinrikyo was the Japanese press. The Japanese press treated the cult like it was a freak show. It was bizarre and weird and Japanese TV ate it up. They would put Asahara on any daytime TV when he could or interview him and they gave him a platform to promote his cult. The worst offender was the Tokyo Broadcasting System, they violated confidentiality and that led to the deaths of the Sakamotos by Aum members in November 1989. The cult had gotten away with that murder for five and a half years. The media then quickly jumped onto accepting Yoshiyuki Kono as the suspect due publishing an incorrect opinion by a leading military expert on how Sarin is made. The most famous media interview of Asahara was by “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, comedian, actor, director, writer, and television host. [14] There were reporters and some newspapers that did not report positively on Aum, Shimbum Akahata (Newspaper Red Banner) [15] did not like Aum and referred to the religion as theft of millions of yen. Despite the press changing views thanks to the Yomiuri story and older stories coming up again, if the press had been more critical of Aum perhaps the attacks could have been avoided.
Incidents Before 3/20
Besides kidnapping and killing people who rescued and hid cult members and killing perceived opposition with VX [16], Aum Shinrikyo was busy preparing for November 1995. While 1997 was the prophesied date for doomsday [17] the cult was going to kick off doomsday at the end of the year due to their plans to overthrow the government it had the simple name “National Overthrow Plan.” They planned on using a modified MIL Mi-17 helicopter with crop dusting modifications to spray Tokyo with Sarin. They would emerge from the chaos with allies in the military and kick off World War III, or ride out World War III.
As silly or bizarre this plan may seem to many now, what is scary is how close the cult got to carrying out its plans and what parts they carried out. They were starting a major operation to make Sarin, VX, Phosgene gas, cyanide gas, and explosives. Aum Shinrikyo had tried to make a nuclear bomb and they had made a large amount of conventional explosives. While their nuclear ambitions were squashed The cult was focused on making sarin and other gasses but at the start of the year their plans to make Sarin at their compound in Kamikuishiki hit three major roadblocks.
The first roadblock was the story in Yomiuri Shimbun [18], accusing the cult of being the party responsible for the Matsumoto Sarin attack. But also their poisoning of residents of Kamikuishiki village because of them making Sarin was made public. It was not helped that Taro Takimoto who besides helping the Aum Victim’s Association was keeping the anti-Aum message alive. As Takimoto would when asked to talk to reporters from other papers, TV, or radio would happily do so. His campaign was helped by the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka
The second roadblock was the poisoning of Hiroyuki Nagaoka, head of the Aum Victim’s Association. This act was viewed by the police foolishly as if it was suicide. [19] A police detective connected to the case but not on it would say years later they did not view the Nagaoka poisoning seriously. “I mean our division in the police usually deal with suicides, murders in Japan happen but we go out mostly to every hanging, poisoning, seppuku, and everyday you can imagine a person killing oneself and you get the picture.” Nagaoka was poisoned by a VX nerve agent solution being dropped on his neck via a syringe and absorbed into the skin. Nagaoka’s plight got attention in Japan and really started turning public opinion against Aum Shinrikyo.
Then finally, there were still internal problems In the cult. There were cultists who believed in what Asahara was saying but not the method. These members had tried several times to either take over the cult or undermine Asahara’s authority. This often left members in Aum Shinrikyo’s improvised prison at the Satyan complex near Mount Fuji. But dissidents in the cult still persisted. So Asahara had his inner circle deal with them, often by killing them.
Then the problem with the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya came about at the end of February 1995. Kariya had helped his sister escape from the cult and the cult wanted her as she had given the cult $600,000 dollars, they figured she had more. However, they could not find his sister and abducted Kariya. However, when trying to sedate Kariya his abductors overdosed him on anesthetic. His body was taken to the Aum Satyan compound and Kariya’s body was cremated in the microwave incinerator they had on the property.
However, the public had mostly turned against Aum by mid-March 1995. But the cult was moving onto something much more dangerous.
Before 3/20, there were some failed attacks against metros in Yokohama and Nagoya [20] but these were only suspected Aum attacks . A confirmed failed attack was on March 15th, 1995 when they attempted to release botulism at Kasumigaseki Station. A cult member replaced the botulism laced liquid with water. This went unnoticed by police until later.
However, the police finally decided to act, not on any of the rumored terrorist attacks but the abduction of Kiyoshi Kariya after his sister told authorities of the terrors going on in the Aum Shinrikyo compound in the shadow of Mount Fuji. The Testimony of Kariya’s sister was what helped persuade authorities to act. At the same time Hiroyuki Nagaoka awoke from a 69 day coma and began to remember that someone had bumped into him before he was poisoned. Multiple prefectural police forces would raid the Kamikuishiki compound to search for Kariya.
There was a problem with the police plan for the March 22nd raid, the cult had spies in both the police and the Japan Self Defense Force. When the plans for the raid went out to law enforcement, Aum’s spies told the Aum leadership. This put the cult into a panic. They needed to distract the authorities from their search. The cult began up its sarin manufacturing again after having it disabled for months due to the fear of a police raid. So this sarin was made quickly and dirty. It was very impure and had a brownish tint to the fuild’s color. They made 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of sarin. Four of the five men carrying out the attack carried two packets totaling approximately 0.9 liters (30 US fl oz) of sarin, except for Yasuo Hayashi, who had three bags with 1.3 liters each of sarin.
Before the attack an Aum member was murdered. The reason for this was to make it look like the cult was under attack by ruthless enemies opposed to their message. The member picked was a member of Aum’s laborer class and was from a poor fishing family from Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture. Asahara’s bodyguard, Akira Yamagata, murdered Kijuro Akiyama (26) in Shirakawa Park, Naka Ward, Nagoya on March 19th, 1995.[21]
Yamagata would also lob a Molotov cocktail at the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo. He also left anti-Aum leaflets on the walls of the headquarters. At the same time a bomb went to a pro-Aum scholar, he had ‘fortunately’ moved. But Yamagata knew the apartment would be empty.
Tokyo Subway Attack
A common factor in the Sarin attacks was Kasumigaseki Station (Source: Wikipedia)
Monday March 20th, 1995 seemed to most Tokyo Commuters to be like any other day. There were issues with ticketing, repairs being done to the various lines. The news of voice actor Yasuo Yamada’s death was still fresh in the morning papers. But as the morning commuters began to go to work the insidious sarin attack would begin.
Three subway lines were picked, the Chiyoda Line, the Marunouchi Line, and the Hibiya Line. Two lines, the Marunouchi Line and the Hibiya Line, had two perpetrators going in opposite direction Ogikubo-bound and Ikebukuro-bound on the Marunouchi Line and on the Hibiya Line the two perpetrators there were going towards Tōbu Dōbutsu Kōen-bound and Naka-Meguro-bound. [22] The perpetrators were going on the three lines and puncture the bags before leaving from the subway at a planned station.
The Tokyo Subway system is not just one subway but two. Eidan (Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan) and Toei (Toei chikatetsu). The two subways often have stations with lines that cohabit the platforms. This is uniquely Japanese in its operation. The subways were operated by different groups, Eidan was operated by the Ministry of Transport and Toei was operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. This system in both the bureaucratic and the physical sense would complicate stopping the spread of sarin.
Sarin is a terrible weapon. Made by the Nazis in 1939, they mass produced but never used it in battle or in the death camps. Many of the Cold War Powers made sarin weapons in the 1950s. The first use of sarin didn’t occur until 1988 and was used by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq. All nerve agents cause their toxic effects by preventing the proper operation of an enzyme that acts as the body’s “off switch” for glands and muscles. Without an “off switch,” the glands and muscles are constantly being stimulated. Exposed people may become tired and no longer be able to keep breathing. Sarin is the most volatile of the nerve agents. This means it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and spread into the environment. People can be exposed to the vapor even if they do not come in contact with the liquid form of sarin. People exposed to a low or moderate dose of sarin may experience some or all of the following symptoms within seconds to hours of exposure: runny nose, watery eyes, small, pinpoint pupils, eye pain, blurred vision, drooling and excessive sweating, cough, chest tightness, rapid breathing, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain, increased urination, confusion, drowsiness, weakness. headache, slow or fast heart rate, and low or high blood pressure. Exposure to large doses of sarin by any route may result in the following harmful health effects: loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and respiratory failure possibly leading to death. The reason Aum picked the subway was simple: confined spaces meant the sarin would be more effective than via helicopter or via their spray truck. [23]
The perpetrators would get on the train and either puncture the bags before the stop they got off on or about halfway through the tunnel before the stop. The perpetrators would then, at the next stop, get off the train quickly. They would go into a getaway car and apply atropine to counter the effects of the sarin. When looking for the sarin bags, the police found them wrapped in various newspapers, like the Soka Gakkai paper or the communist party paper to the more conventional newspapers like The Nikkei or Sports Hochi.
Yasuo Hayashi carried more sarin as the cult leadership did not trust him entirely, he took large quantities and his bags of sarin had more impurities than the rest to prove his loyalties. The fact the whole batch of sarin was impure was a major blessing as since all sarin bags were found punctured by police, if the sarin was a better quality the casualties would be higher than 27.[24]
The perpetrators were also armed with umbrellas with sharpened tips. This was designed to puncture the bags containing the sarin. The five perpetrators all stabbed their bags multiple times. No sarin bags remained unpierced when police and fire department hazmat teams along with Japanese Ground Self Defense Force chemical troops would find them during the investigation. [25]
It quickly became apparent to passengers something was wrong. They felt ill, nauseous, their vision darkened, severe headaches, respiratory problems that got worse, they would have nose bleeds that became more severe, and muscular spasms that became more severe. As the passengers felt more ill, panic began to take hold. As the early effects of the strain hit, people began to pour out of trains affected in mass when they arrived at the stations. They had no idea what was going on; they just knew to get out. Station staff knew something was wrong but not what and allowed people to evacuate through the ticket halls of the subway stations. Several station attendants tried to clean up the sarin bags and did a heroic job with them either paying with major injury or death.
As the panic began to spread the media of Japan became aware and the TV reporters of the major private networks and NHK would arrive on scene to many stations. Tsukiji was one of the first followed by Kasumigaseki, and others had the press flock there as emergency services set up battlefield hospitals of victims on the streets. The media was too busy filming and would be more interested in the suffering of the victims than helping the people or emergency services with the victims. [26]
The subway authorities still had trains going while most of the affected trains had stopped at a platform, the system was still active, it was pushing air contaminated at stations affected by the sarin through other lines. As a new train came in the air was pushed through a station onto other platforms and down those lines, It was not until 10 AM a half hour after the last affected train had stopped that both subway systems Eidan and Teio were stopped. The Tokyo subway system was at a standstill.
No one in the police or fire department knew this was sarin at first. Hospitals quickly grew swamped with patients, though most weren’t serious, they were scared. This being months after the Kobe Earthquake and hospitals saying they had a disaster plan, it became apparent they did not. [27] Plenty of sarin victims went to their jobs, with sarin residue affecting them and others. Many victims of the sarin attack were helping other victims of sarin escape from the subway. It wasn’t until a professor watching the events unfold on TV realized it was Sarin and called the authorities. Dr. Nobuo Yanagisawa had treated the sarin victims from Matsumoto the previous year. City hospitals had a lack of atropine and other medicines to counter Sarin’s effect; they would call on rural hospitals for atropine and other similar cures since Japanese pesticides are very toxic. [28] JR also ran a special bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo filled with atropine since a major factory that made the drug was in Osaka.
As the day continued the Governor of Tokyo asked for the Self Defense Forces help and quickly got medical aid and GSDF troops trained in decontamination to scrub affected trains, platforms, ticket lobbies and so forth. While most stations would reopen in a day or two, Kasumigaseki station was closed for almost a week. The international press got a hold of this on the first day Aum Shinrikyo was being talked about as a potential culprit.
The injured from the deadly gas attack in Tokyo on March 20, 1995, are treated by rescue workers near Tsukiji subway station.
(Source: Kyodo / Reuters)
Soldiers of the JGSDF Chemical Corps cleaning up a subway car of Sarin (Jiji Press-JSDF—AFP/Getty Images)
The Police Raid and the Investigation
Tokyo Police, the National Police Agency and other police agencies began their investigation into the attacks and quickly one culprit rose to the top, Aum Shinrikyo. The police would raid Aum’s headquarters and their offices nationwide. Ten thousand police officers would raid the various cult offices across Japan. The largest force raided their Fuji Satyan compound. This was the largest police raid in Japanese history at that time. For the Kamikuishiki raid they had given officers gas masks, JGSDF chemical troops were on scene and on standby as was the JGSDF 1st Airborne Brigade if the cult decided to put up a fight. [29]
The police would raid the cult compound and various offices and find very little resistance. Aum Shinrikyo leaders went into hiding on March 21st and the raid happened on the 22nd. Shoko Asahara did warn of a major event on April 15th but the cult leaders were not found in Kamikuishiki. But what police found stunned them.
At the compound, police discovered a Russian military helicopter that had been modified for crop dusting which they later found out was for sarin distribution, they found a chemical factory for explosives, for chemical weapons, drugs, labs for biological warfare, holding cells for prisoners, microwave incinerators, and more.
Aum Shinrikyo Compound, viewed from the air. In those buildings are biolabs, chemical factories, and explosives. (Source: Getty)
Riot Police Raid Aum Compound at Kamikuishiki, Mount Fuji in the background. (Source: Associated Press)
The police found fifty cultists in varying degrees of consciousness, they had been fasting for a week. The police took six of the most ill cultists to the hospital. There were the cold baths, the hot baths, hot sand, and other initiation and strength building methods the cult used. These methods had accidentally killed a few members in the past due to said cult members not having high enough tolerances for these tortuous practices.
Also discovered in the Satyan complex was failed attempts at an AK-74 copy. Most looked like they were non-firing or had exploded. [30] The government of Japan for weeks after the attack thought that the sarin was of Russian origin until they discovered the sarin factory at Satyan and figured out what it was.
The investigation discovered the more odd side of the cult, they had begun construction of a processing facility to bottle the bath water of Shoko Asahara to sell to members for 10,000 Yen (about a hundred dollars) a bottle. They found clippings of Asahara’s hair, his toenails, fingernails ,and bags filled with his leftovers. [31] Also discovered were crystals that Asahara allegedly imbued with his essence, this was inspired by the popularity of Dark Crystal. There were also plenty of Aum Shinrikyo, audio and video tapes, anime, and books. They also found some Hitler memorabilia. It was later discovered that Asahara was like Hitler. [32]
As these investigations went on the police looked for the body of Kiyoshi Kariya. The police suspected he was dead but had little evidence that he was deceased. Minoru Kariya, Kiyoshi’s son and Kiyoshi’s sister who escaped Aum, Aiko Nishina, had not heard from him in over a month and they wanted answers. The release of Aum Prisoners from the compound relay to the police Aum’s imprisonment activities.
The police found evidence that the cult had frequently used the incinerator but not until later did they find evidence it had been used on humans. Ikuo Hayashi, the man who had put the sarin bags on the Chiyoda line and Aum’s “Minister for Health”, would admit to police he and several other cultists had killed Kariya either via overdose or Kariya having some unknown health issue when injecting the 68 year old with sodium thiopental, though this was revealed later.
Meanwhile the Australian authorities went to the property Aum purchased, Banjawarn Station, and investigated the massive property eventually finding the sheep the cult tested the sarin on. Also discovered was evidence of explosives that were tested on the Banjawarn Station property, though this was discovered after 4/15. This created quite a bit of outrage directed at the Australian Customs Service for failing to prevent sarin nerve agent from entering Australian territory. Fierce political debate occurred on the floor of the House of Representatives on the failure of the agency.
However as the investigation occurred the cult made its next strike.
Assassination the NPA Police Chief Takaji Kunimatsu
While leaving his Tokyo apartment National Police Agency Commissioner General Takaji Kunimatsu was shot four times. The 57 year old Kunimatsu was without a security detail but there was never such an attempt against a sitting Commissioner General, so the Commissioner General had no security detail. He was shot by a man in a black coat and surgical mask. Three shots hit Kunimatsu, four shots were fired from a Colt Python revolver. One round missed, Kunimatsu.
Kunimatsu was rushed to a nearby hospital but despite eight hours of surgery, and three attempts to resuscitate Kunimatsu, he died on the operating table due to blood loss and the damage to his liver caused by a round hitting Kunimatsu in the liver. [33] Kunimatsu’s killer would call several TV and radio stations claiming he was the killer of Kunimatsu and threatened Tokyo Metropolitan Police Chief Yukihiko Inoue, saying, ““I killed Kunimatsu. Inoue is next.”
The perpetrator was Toshiyuki Kosugi, a police officer in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. He was persuaded by an unknown Aum leader, Kosugi never revealed his masters or co-conspirators in the plot. Three weeks later as he was investigated in the aftermath of 4/15 Kosugi was found dead in Shinjuku Gyoen Park after not coming into duty one day. He had hanged himself, the reasons he gave in his suicide note was that he was used by the cult and misled into killing the NPA Police commissioner. [34]
Kunimatsu was replaced by his deputy, Yuko Sekiguchi, in at first an acting capacity then on a permanent basis. Home Affairs Minister Hiromu Nonaka, called the assassination “A challenge against the state and democracy and a disgrace in front of the world.” Since Kunimatsu was the head of the Aum Shinrikyo investigation the police believed his assassination was related to the sarin attacks and to create chaos in the investigation. It did create some chaos but the investigation was largely uninterrupted by this attack.
But these attacks were drawing the ire of the new opposition to the weak response by Socialist-LDP government of Tomiichi Murayama. Leader of the New Frontier Party Ichiro Ozawa claimed, “The Socialist reluctance to use the Japanese Self Defense Force and enact Articles 78 and 79 of the Self Defense Force Law. But the fact this government is reluctant to use the JSDF for disaster operations proves their weakness.” Ozawa and many members of the LDP were unhappy with hesitation to use the JSDF to respond to this operation outside of Article 83. [35]
But as the investigation continued and police looked for Aum Shinrikyo they would make their next move.
Posted with the permission of
[1] Fictional Author
[2] This world’s version of Internet Archive
[3] As stated before Nagano police thought Kono was guilty but this is not uncommon in Japan and there have been innocent men sent to prison in a version of the Central Park jogging case interrogation on steroids. Being interrogated for days from 9AM to 12AM
[4] In OTL the Japanese view marijuana on the same level as meth. And for a long time stalking wasn’t considered a crime in Japan and nor was inappropriate touching on the cramped subway cars. It led to women only cars in some city,
[5] Chongryon is a North Korean friendship organization that is sort of a de facto embassy of North Korea in Japan and used for spying and possible abductions. There is a South Korean group too.
[6] Aum Shinrikyo ran 24 candidates, including Asahara, none won. Asahara only got 1200 votes in his election.
[7] The Boeing Scandal, when JAL 123 belly landed in Sagami Bay the subsequent investigation revealed Boeing knew JAL repair personnel did an incorrect splice plate but JAL was a MAJOR client of Boeing it reminded the Japanese of the Lockheed Scandal of a decade prior. More will be revealed in a future post.
[8] Souske Uno was briefly Prime Minister after Takeshita, he had an affair with a geisha that was first reported by foreign press but came to domestic news in Japan. Considered the first modern Japanese sex scandal. Politicians had affairs before but they weren’t reported.
[9] A snap election called in March 1991 in this universe due to an attempt to oust Toshiki Kaifu due to reforms he backed as Prime Minister by former PM Takeshita. This resulted in the LDP losing their majority and the socialists coming to power. More to be reveal later.
[10] Estimated number of Russians in Aum was about 50,000 in our world so I upped it due to the USR being more together.
[11] Snatkin, a Russian gun runner character. He sold weapons to the cult primarily though he was arrested when he talked about stealing from Aralsk-7.
[12] Aum was interested in Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. Going to a city near the Aral Sea version of Porton Down made sense in universe. They were also close to the Kazakhstan nuclear test site in universe but security on NBC or CBRN weapons was taken seriously.
[13] Labor governments don’t like the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) as they spied on the left of Australia. Also ASIO probably was likely involved in the 1978 Sydney Hilton Bombing. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) were likely involved in the 1973 Chilean Coup, the Favaro Affair, the Sheraton Hotel incident (that’s a doozy, a training exercise that forgot to inform local police or the hotel), involvement in Papua New Guinea, and media revelations in 1994 on a lack of oversight. Both are pretty incompetent.
[14] Here is the interview:
[15] I have not found much on it but the Communist Paper (one of the largest in a non-communist state) did not like Aum.
[16] They poisoned a guy with VX whom they thought was spying on their office in Osaka.
[17] Per OTL Cult prediction
[18] Yomiuri is the biggest daily newspaper in Japan. At the Time it had millions of daily readers
[19] It is amazing how hesitant the police were going after Aum. This is based on reality.
[20] They didn’t do anything in Nagoya originally but it is a slight reference to “A Giant Sucking Sound” and Nagoya is the biggest port in Japan.
[21] A fictional member of the cult killed to make members, a minority of them, more easy to convince the government is after them.
[22] The names refer to the ending termini of each line in a certain direction.
[23] The sarin spray truck the cult had caught fire. That’s per OTL
[24] If the Sarin was more pure there would be more deaths.
[25] The big butterfly, more casualties are the result of more punctures in our world. Not all the sarin bags were punctured in our world. This allowed for more deaths due to more liquid sarin turning into a gas. Also increased injuries.
[26] Much of the Japanese media personnel got in the way of emergency services as they conducted rescue operations in OTL. I did not see a reason to change that.
[27] Despite the Kobe Earthquake many hospitals were not equipped to handle the flood of patients. One exception was St. Luke’s International Hospital near Tsukiji.
[28] Japanese Pesticides are some of the most lethal in the world. It is often why you can’t find organicly grown vegetables in Japan.
[29] The First Airborne are important as they had some Aum spies in them.
[30] Aum’s Attempts to make AK-74s fell flat on their face. This is straight from reality.
[31] While I will admit I am stretching some things a little I am not stretching them too far as literally people would pay hundreds up to tens of thousand of dollars to lick Asahara’s plates, drink his bathwater, suck on his toes, eat his leftovers, and so forth as Aum Shinrikyo made Asahara a figure of purity.
[32] No Surprise he liked Hitler. This is also from reality.
[33] Kunimatsu was very lucky in our world and barely survived, here he was shot in the liver and died after a similar fight.
[34] Toshiyuki Kosugi would live and never see the inside of a jail cell in our world here after 4/15 he feels betrayed and used.
[35] The articles mentioned are there in case of use for the JSDF 78 and 79 are for “security operations” and their preparation. Security operations are if police cannot handle a problem. Article 83 is force mobilization in case of a disaster which is a very common use of the JSDF.
Lack of regulations, regulatory capture (amukadari "The descent from heaven for bureaucrats into the private sector), pork barrel politics, perception of strong insects. and the need for limited farmland to produce.
Oh it has led to an ecological disaster in parts of the country.
Lake Shinji is one of many problematic lakes in Japan thanks to pesticides and their overuse.
Neonicotinoid Insecticides Deprive Fish of Food in Lake Shinji, Japan - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog
(Beyond Pesticides, November 6, 2019) Between 1981 and 1992, Japanese fishers annually reaped an average of 240 tons of smelt from Lake Shinji. After 1993, their nets turned up about 22 tons – a 90% drop in their yield. Eel catches dropped by 74%. New research, published in the journal Science...
beyondpesticides.org
Sounds like ripe work for an EPA organization. Does Japan have any of those?Oh it has led to an ecological disaster in parts of the country.
Lake Shinji is one of many problematic lakes in Japan thanks to pesticides and their overuse.
Neonicotinoid Insecticides Deprive Fish of Food in Lake Shinji, Japan - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog
(Beyond Pesticides, November 6, 2019) Between 1981 and 1992, Japanese fishers annually reaped an average of 240 tons of smelt from Lake Shinji. After 1993, their nets turned up about 22 tons – a 90% drop in their yield. Eel catches dropped by 74%. New research, published in the journal Science...beyondpesticides.org
It does. It has it's own history of Environmental problems.
Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan - Wikipedia
Ministry of the Environment (Japan) - Wikipedia
It was the Environment Agency before 2001
Problem is they viewed environmental problems as under those four preceding incidents and possibly nuclear. This is Pre-Fukushima.
Reading the Japan guest post, I'm surprised Aum didn't try and find some way to release the sarin inside the Shinjuku Station ventilation system--I got that idea from the TL A Giant Sucking Sound by @MaskedPickle, which also features Aum destroying Nagoya with a nuclear weapon (Ashara doesn't survive in that TL (1))...
(1) And I'm secretly convinced that US Delta Force in that TL helped the JASDF hunt down Ashara; they helped the Colombians hunt down Pablo Escobar in OTL...
(1) And I'm secretly convinced that US Delta Force in that TL helped the JASDF hunt down Ashara; they helped the Colombians hunt down Pablo Escobar in OTL...
Well I can't say too much on the next post but Asahara will have problems.
