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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 2 years

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On the Unification Church in Japan; extract from Moonwebs: Journey Into the Mind of a Cult by Josh Freed, published in 1980

▲ Ryoichi Sasagawa “right wing tycoon” speaking at the 1970 WACL in Tokyo. Sun Myung Moon was hoping the mobilization of all the Japanese members to support the event would elevate his status in the organization. When he was not crowned king of WACL, he somewhat distanced himself from WACL for a number of years. He later got more involved with WACL when he saw opportunities for himself through the CAUSA model.

Josh Freed’s work has aged very well after over 40 years. His book is available HERE.

One facet of Moon’s political empire was not even touched upon by the Fraser Committee—the Japanese connection which some Moon-watchers believe to be more important than even the link with Korea. Moon’s Japanese Church, the Genri Undo, is an influential movement tied to some of the most powerful ultra-right nationalist forces in Asia.

Moon’s three principal backers in the Orient are Ryoichi Sasagawa, Nobusuke Kishi and Yoshio Kodama—post war billionaires and political forces who share a dream of restoring the Emperor and Japan to their former glory. Some observers believe they are the real power behind Moon.

Sasagawa is the godfather of the Japanese underworld and the founder of the Japanese kamikaze pilot squads. He was imprisoned briefly as a Class A war criminal after the war, then released to become a billionaire political power in Indonesia and Cambodia. He actively supports the Unification Church in Japan, and is described by Bo Hi Pak as a “true humanitarian and patriot”, by Moon as “very close to Master”.

Sasagawa was also at the center of the old China Lobby—a powerful combination of Asian dictators, American right-wing politicians and international businessmen who influenced U.S. policy in the Pacific after World War II. In the 1960’s Sasagawa set up the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), currently the major alliance of right-wing forces in the world. Moon’s Japanese Church is a member of the WACL, and sponsored its 1970 annual conference. Moon claims his Church raised $1.4 million in flower sales and helped finance the “best WACL conference ever”.

[Note: The World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD) is an international non-governmental organization of anti-communist politicians and groups. It was founded in 1952 as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) under the initiative of Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and retired General Charles A. Willoughby – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_League_for_Freedom_and_Democracy ]

▲ The WACL conference at the Tokyo Budokan Hall

The man in charge of promoting that conference was Nobusuke Kishi another active backer of the Japan Unification Church, a former prime minister of Japan, and president of its ruling party. At the 1970 WACL meeting, Kishi organized a grand welcoming banquet for Moon when he arrived in Japan. According to Bo Hi Pak, both Kishi and Sasagawa help the Unification Church by “encouraging young people through their position as elder statesmen. They open doors, issue statements and attend rallies, and they testify to other important Japanese.”

The third member of this right-wing triumvirate, Yoshio Kodama, has been described by the New York Times as “one of the most powerful men in the Orient”. He recently became notorious for his role in the Lockheed pay-off scandal involving the Japanese government.

▲ Yoshio Kodama

Kodama is considered one of the kingpins of Japanese politics, and has had a hand in selecting several prime ministers. He is not an active Moon backer, but acted as an advisor to Kishi and the Moonies during the 1970 WACL meeting. Moon’s links with Kodama, Kishi and Sasagawa have raised speculation that Japan is the source of his early funding; Harpers magazine even speculated that his seed money may have come through the Lockheed pay-offs, raising the possibility that Moon began his growth with American corporate funds.

Moon has at least two other interesting links in Japan. One is with recently defeated prime minister Takeo Fukuda, who attended a banquet in Moon’s honor in 1974, accompanied by two cabinet ministers. When questioned in the Japanese Diet, Fukuda replied: “He (Moon) is a very splendid man, and his philosophy has common parts with my own—namely cooperation and unity. So I was very impressed by him.”

Moon is also close to Japan’s director of the environment, Shintaro Ishihara, who received enormous door-to-door support from the Moonies in the 1976 elections. Shortly after, Ishihara attended a Church dinner and announced: “I received great help from your people…in my election campaign. I had no idea there were such fine young people in present day Japan.”

These links with some of the most powerful people in the Orient make many Moon watchers believe that Moon is more than a puppet for the Korean Government. According to Andrew Ross, a West Coast journalist who broke many of Moon’s Korean connections long before the Fraser Committee. “Moon is right at the center of a constellation of world-wide right-wing forces that is very powerful…and very frightening.”

How powerful is the Church today? Since the outset of the Fraser Committee, the South Korean Government has gone to great lengths to disassociate itself from Moon and the Church. It has cancelled the passports of the Little Angels ballet troupe and has charged the president of Moon’s ginseng tea company with $6 million in tax evasion. (He escaped to Japan.)

The Church cites these difficulties as proof that it has no links with South Korea, while other critics have said it certainly spells the end of any “special relationship” Moon has enjoyed with the South Korean Government.

The Fraser committee found evidence, however, that as late as 1978 the Church continued to have “significant support” from South Korean authorities. The committee pointed out that in that year a Moon industry was awarded contracts as a chief weapons supplier for the Korean Government. They put particular emphasis on a strange incident that occurred in late 1977: the American weapons firm Colt Industries sent a cable to the South Korean government suggesting an arms deal. Several weeks later Colt officials received a call from Moon’s Tong-Il manufacturing plant. Moon’s representatives then told Colt officials they would work out the deal for South Korea. They said the Korean government was aware of their actions and supported them, but would deny it if it came out in public.

The subcommittee recalled Moon’s professed goals, including the formation of a “Unification Crusade Army”, and concluded its report on this note:

“Under the circumstances, the subcommittee believes it is in the interests of the United States to know what control Moon and his followers have over instruments of war and to what extent they are in a position to influence Korean defence policies.”

The assassination of South Korean president Park in late 1979 throws Moon’s future status in Korea into question. No one can say whether the new government of Choi Kyu-Hah will continue to favor Moon or simply consider him a nuisance. However, it is worth noting that one of the most powerful men in the new government, so powerful that he was considered a leading candidate to become president, is Kim Chong-Pil; the man who met secretly with the Unification Church in San Francisco in 1961 and later became the honorary chairman of the KCFF.

In America too there are strong indications that Moon is far from dead. His financial investments continue to grow rapidly in fishing, film, newspaper and real estate, and his annual science conference continues to attract distinguished academics the world over. In November 1979, the ICUS science conference was held in Los Angeles and drew a full house.

Moon is again living in the United States after several months out of the country during the term of a subpoena by the Fraser Committee, and he is planning a mass wedding of two thousand couples in the United States sometime in 1980. [The mass wedding happened at Madison Square Gardens in July 1982.] He was also hoping to plan a giant “March on Moscow” in 1980—a top secret mission in which troops of Moonies would sweep down on the Russian Olympics in the guise of marching bands, with Divine Principles and bibles concealed in their drums.

Perhaps the most telling example of the Moonies’ still-flourishing power was displayed against the man who has been most effective in exposing them—Rep. Donald Fraser.

In the 1978 primaries, the Moonies campaigned actively against Fraser in his home state of Minnesota. As the Fraser Committee noted, all aspects of the Moon organization were synchronized against him—political, economic and religious. Anti-Fraser brochures were printed up by Moon’s publishing company; documentaries were made of the Fraser hearings by Moon film crews for airing in Korea; articles derogating Fraser and making Bo Hi Pak a martyr were run in News World; and individual Church members campaigned against Fraser in the street.

The results were effective. On October 7, about a month before the release of his committee’s final report, Donald Fraser was narrowly defeated in his bid to become the Democratic candidate for the Senate.

Sun Myung Moon had proved a more powerful opponent than even Fraser could deal with.

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Moonwebs by Josh Freed (the book was made into a movie)

How Sun Myung Moon bought protection in Japan 1. The LDP’s Tangled Ties to the Unification Church (2022) 2. Richard J. Samuels (2001 report)  3. John Roberts (1978 report)

Nobusuke Kishi wrote a letter to President Reagan to get Moon released from jail; he was in for perjury, document forgery and tax evasion in 1984

The LDP’s Tangled Ties to the Unification Church – The Diplomat

Shinzo Abe’s Assassin Succeeds in Twisted Plot to Expose Japan’s Deep Ties with ‘Cult’ – The Daily Beast

Allen Tate Wood interviewed: as a top UC leader in the 1960s he was a moderator at WACL in 1970 in Tokyo

#Kodama Yoshio #Sasakawa Ryoichi #Kishi Nobusuke #Sun Myung Moon #WACL #World Anti-Communism League #Unification Church #KCIA #Genri Undo

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism · 3 years

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In recent days, the U.S. and NATO have been warning of a Russian military buildup near the Ukrainian border, but never mention that one of the largest U.S. Army-led military exercises in decades has begun and will run until June: Defender Europe 2021, with 28,000 troops from 27 countries operating in a dozen countries from the Balkans to the Black Sea. This is where the real danger of war is coming from.

We say no! People in the U.S. don’t want war with Russia to protect the profits of Big Oil and U.S. banks. We don’t want the U.S. proxy regime in Ukraine to kill our sisters and brothers in Donetsk and Lugansk. We don’t want U.S. troops to be sent to fight and die in another needless conflict. We need an end to racist police brutality and anti-Asian violence. We need money for jobs, housing, healthcare and schools, not war.

SIGN ON AND SHARE: Join the growing list of endorsers

Individuals: Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson Emeritus of the International League of Peoples' Struggle*; Phil Wilayto, Coordinator, Odessa Solidarity Campaign; Berta Joubert-Ceci, Coordinator, International Tribunal on U.S. Crimes against Puerto Rico; William Camacaro, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle; Sharon Black, Peoples Power Assembly; John Parker, Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Los Angeles; Joe Lombardo, National Co-Chair, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)*; Professor Vijay Singh, editor, Revolutionary Democracy journal, New Delhi (India); Bridget Dunne, Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine (UK); Theo Russell, International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (UK); Andy Brooks, General Secretary, New Communist Party of Britain

Organizations: Anti-Imperialist Front; Socialist Unity Party (U.S.); Struggle - La Lucha for Socialism newspaper; Borotba (Ukraine-Donbass); Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic; Women In Struggle-Mujeres En Lucha; Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; International Action Center; No Pasarán Hamburg (Germany); Communist Revolution Action - KED (Greece); Liaison Committee for the Fourth International (LCFI) and national affiliates

#antiwar #imperialism #Ukraine #SaveDonbassPeople #Pentagon #NATO #Joe Biden #Russia #protest #solidarity #anti-imperialist #Donetsk #Lugansk #war games #SANU #Struggle La Lucha #Vladik Shikhov

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hsu-liangyu · 3 years

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"They Are Killing Us: Rage and Trauma in the Wake of the Atlanta Shootings"

A lightly edited post from my Facebook account, 3/19/2021

CW: Anti-Asian racism and violence, racist cartoons, images of racially motivated violence.

"I'm going to put this out there:

If you've known me [Hsu Liang Yu] for any length of time, you'll know that I am extremely vocal about the anti-Asian racism that is present in the US, the racism that has been present in this country since day one.

With the tragic deaths of 8 people, 6 of them Asian women, in Atlanta, perpetrated by a white domestic terrorist (let's call it what it is, folks), I'm going to consolidate all of my feelings on this mess in this post, as best as I can.

This is raw, unfiltered, and unapologetic, straight from the heart.

Anti-Asian sentiments have been in present in America for the better part of 200 years. It has taken many forms, whether it was embodied by municipal, state, or federal legislation, outright violence, stereotyping, enforced ghettoization, portrayals in popular media, or the subtle interactions that Asian people have on a daily basis. The body of evidence is staggering, and if you want me to go on for hours about the Chinese Exclusion Act alone, send me a message and I'll be happy to rant. But the fact of the matter is that Asian Americans live in a country that, historically, does not want us, and has resorted to institutionalized and systemic violence to make that known.

This isn't up for debate.

It's happened, and it continues to happen today. The most horrifying thing is that nowadays, elderly Asian Americans are the ones who are taking the worst of the day-to-day racism and violence in this country, much to the horror of their children and grandchildren.

The racism present here looks like this:

-Limiting the ability of Chinese people to work, unless it was in laundromats, restaurants, hotels, or drug dens (Chinese Exclusion Act)

-Forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes and the forfeiture of their businesses and possessions and their subsequent internment during World War II

-The horrific waves of violence targeting Chinatowns in the 19th and 20th century in Hawai'i, San Francisco, Bellingham, and all throughout the American West Coast, resulting in the lynching deaths of men, women, and children

-The Asiatic Exclusion League that sought to expel Asian Americans from the workforce on the west coast through legislation and violence in the 19th and 20th century

-The fetishization of Asian women as play-things for white men

-The 'model minority' stereotype that sees countless young Asian Americans pursue prestigious careers at the expense of their mental and physical health and to the detriment of their families

-The 'model minority' stereotype that denies help to Asian Americans struggling in school or to find work because they're seen as deviants within their own community and by the white majority

-The fracturing of Asian American and Black solidarity by the FBI during the Civil Rights movement

-Targeting elderly Asian Americans as easy targets for racially motivated violence

-Asian Americans unable to feel at home in their native born country due to anti-Asian sentiments or failure to adhere to the 'model minority' stereotype

-Asian American communities closing themselves off from other ethnic groups for fear of violence

-Asian American communities actively ignoring police brutality and racially motivated violence for fear of violent reprisal from the police or right wing groups

-Asian Americans aligning themselves with racist, right wing movements to try and shield themselves and their families from violence

-White women losing their US citizenship for marrying Chinese men (the Cable Act)

-Keeping Asian American communities in large cities limited to Chinatowns, Japantowns, Koreatowns, etc. due to racially motivated housing and economic attitudes

-Asians being consistently used as antagonists against white protagonists, or, as the "magical Asian" that solves problems through unexplained means

-The continued use of anti-Chinese Communist Party rhetoric as a vehicle for anti-Chinese sentiment (which, surprise!, you can criticize the CCP without criticizing Chinese people themselves, assholes)

-Blaming Asians and Asian Americans for Covid-19 and its spread

-The pillaging of China and other Asian countries during the 19th and early 20th centuries by European powers and the United States

-Police saying that the racially motivated murder of 8 innocent people was the result of a white guy having a 'bad day'

The list keeps going.

It's always been here, and while I appreciate some of the lip-service being paid to the issue, I'm saddened that it's taken the senseless deaths of 8 innocent people at the hands of a white supremacist for people to listen to what the Asian American community has been saying for decades.

If you want to fight this out in the comments, go screw yourself. I'm sick of seeing minorities murdered and be subject to systemic, institutional violence and oppression while random white folks swoop in to gaslight me.

They are attacking our elders. Terrorizing our children. Assaulting our parents, our partners, out family and our friends. They are destroying our businesses and our communities. They are tearing apart our families.

They are killing us.

I'm proud of my heritage and my Asian American identity, and I believe that other Asian Americans should be empowered to feel the same way. The second anyone tries to gaslight this issue is the second that person get's ejected from this post."

#aapi #stop asian hate #asian american #anti racist #first hand experience #yellow peril #yellow peril racism #chinese american #taiwanese american #seattle #west coast #history

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southeastasianists · 5 years

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In the early 21st century, we see that a good part of the world is turning its back on diversity – and this goes beyond Southeast Asia. We see this in Europe, in India, and in the Americas. This trend manifests as a poisonous concoction of intolerance, ethno-nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiments, and populism. Globalization has contributed to this trend, as well as long-running religious enmities. One very good example of this trend is the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

The triumph of democracy following the end of the Cold War was expected by many across the world to usher in a free and golden age, but unfortunately it was not to be. A new genre of ‘democratic’ leaders came to the fore. To them, democracy was about elections, and that meant getting as many votes as you could, through any means. The two currents of democracy and intolerance intermingled and fed on each other, and far-right parties and governments came to power. Diversity is downgraded or denied outright.

The illiberal turn in a number of Southeast Asian countries, while being aimed at maintaining and expanding a party’s grip on state power, has been accompanied by intolerance, discrimination, repression and outright violence against what is essentially pluralism. The ruling National League for Democracy party in Myanmar has only token ethnic minority representation and none of its lawmakers are Muslim. Opposition parties, dissenting media and civil society are facing severe threats from incumbent establishments. Institutions of the dominant religion are taking on a bigger role in politics—sometimes in tandem or in collusion with the state. The primacy of the vote over that of the gun was regained at great cost. But now it means that political leaders are pandering more to interests of race and religion to get votes.

The Dual State

I have been describing the dual state in Myanmar for quite some time. Taking a deeper look, I would further elaborate by calling it ‘twin authoritarianisms’ or ‘authoritarianisms-in-tandem’: the civil as well as the military. It may sound unlikely, given that any authoritarian state is usually a monist entity. This shows that neither of the twin blocs are strong enough to obviate the other. But both sides come down hard on anything else they deem to be standing in their way – the media, minorities, civil society, activists and protesters.

For the Myanmar military that enjoyed near-absolute power for half a century, authoritarian and illiberal traits come naturally. One local analyst observes that at least the military is more consistent. But for the National League for Democracy, which spent the past three decades clamouring for all the noble virtues, its recent descent to baser sentiments comes as a rude shock to many (this writer excepted). All the institutions regarded as pillars of, and adjuncts to, liberal democracy are now under threat. If someone were to question the party on this, the blame would be glibly passed on to the obstructionist military. Of late it has become my task to gently disabuse people – both within the country and abroad – that this is not as neat as it sounds. The civilian party government has to shoulder part of the responsibility.

I have used the term ‘post-ideology’ to describe present-day Myanmar. In a country where the Left had been such a potent force, it is now difficult to identify a meaningful political party that can be classified as leftist. The Burma Socialist Programme Party in its later years cannot be seen as left anymore, and the Communist Party of Burma collapsed in 1989. In the absence of a sophisticated leftist politics, the way opened up for a swing to the Right. One sees parallels of this in Eastern Europe.

A further outcome is the rise of majoritarianism and the dawn of an electoral democracy. With an antiquated first-past-the-post electoral system, the politicians and generals know very well that if you have the ethnic and religious majority sewn up, you do not have to bother much about either election outcomes or the minorities.

The consequences of all these trends are many. With the collapse of ideology, the 70-year long civil war is now being waged against ethnic minorities. In other words, it has turned into a straight ethnic war. One sees in Rakhine, and for long in Kachin and Shan states, the accompanying disregard for civilian lives and the depths of brutality.

The Bamar government’s and military’s premise is that “a rising Bamar tide will lift all ethnic boats”, but in reality, that isn’t the case.

Now at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the NLD government is dutifully carrying on what had been done since the one-party state—rolling out the outward trappings of ethnic diversity and ‘unity’ on certain dates like Union Day. But members of the ethnic minorities have come to realize, painfully in recent years, that these gestures are empty and devoid of meaning. Some of these people are starting to point out that the NLD and military are acting in collusion.

First of all, the powers-that-be have to acknowledge that ethnic diversity is as fundamental to Myanmar as is the Irrawaddy River. And just as useful. Influenced by the ethnic rebellions, the central state, and especially the military, sees ethnic identity as a threat. Their solution is assimilation, as China is attempting to do with the Uighurs. There has to be a sea-change in this perspective. But Naypyidaw is not a place known for its intellectualism, nor, should I add, for its leadership.

Myanmar civil society came to the fore a little before the current ethnic unravelling began. With the paucity of state efforts, civil society may turn out to be the only lifeline. But essentially on the all-important issues of pluralism and diversity, the state and society have to see the error of their ways, and change. The task also needs to be taken up by intellectuals—writers, historians, film-makes and the media. The democracy promotion outfits also need to change tack—less emphasis on elections and more on pluralism and what are called ‘emancipative values’.

Pre- and post-2015: both shades of grey

The expectation since 1988 had been that the NLD government would liberalize Myanmar: this has not happened. Progress towards a more liberal Myanmar has been glacial. The generational divide has quite a bit to do with it—the Union Solidarity and Development Party and NLD leadership are from the same generation, and from the Bamar Buddhist majority. Even if objectives like constitutional amendment are achieved, allowing, for instance, winning ethnic parties to form governments in their own states, it will not be a panacea.

Bamar ethnic dominance, transposed to the political sphere, leads to a simplistic motto: “We are a democracy now, and so votes count. The more voters we have, the better. Diversity isn’t important.” The two major parties are essentially Bamar-dominant, with token minority representation. The large number of non-Bamar parties comprising members of single ethnic groups is testimony to the fact that the non-Bamar nationalities prefer to go their own way instead of teaming up with either of the two major parties. So where does that leave us with regard to building a federal system, a multi-ethnic nation, and a pan-ethnic national identity? These goals appear to be far beyond the horizon.

What Aung San Su Kyi and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing have in common is the determination to concentrate power in themselves and to close decision-making. There are strengths and weaknesses to this. It could bring success as well as failure. Myanmar’s present case inclines towards the latter. And fortune isn’t exactly smiling on either of them now. At the same time, both have strong survival and self-perpetuation instincts, and they have the organizational machinery to this end. The NLD for one will use all means at its disposal to win the next elections.

Myanmar’s political leadership is characterized by hierarchy, gerontocracy, and its reactionary nature. Post-2015 this seems to have become even more marked. The two leaders are also in their sunset years, and the best thing they could do now is to acknowledge reality and think about the legacy they shall leave behind.

We are staring at the fact that older generations are failed generations, and I would put the point of demarcation at age 45. (Someone posted a list of current cabinet ministers and their ages and it entirely fits the description of gerontocracy).

As Myanmar moves into the closing years of the NLD’s term of office, the two leaders—ASSK and Min Aung Hlaing—share the unenviable distinction of having together pushed the country further downhill. And more than system decay or state refractoriness, individualistic and personalistic factors—failings, really—have played a big part. There are those who study or push issues like the peace process, civil-military relations, and constitutional reform, but none of these can be treated in isolation without factoring in the leadership debility problem.

Recent developments in the region—particularly in India—merit comparison with Myanmar. Naypyidaw and Delhi have much in common now—the falling back upon authoritarian populism, and religious nationalism to begin with. The corollaries in both countries are a disregard for minorities both ethnic and religious, a mistrust of civil society, and the rolling back of democratic and secular values. And then comes the bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the imposition of union territory status, and rule by centrally-appointed governors. All done sadly, in a rather sleight-of-hand manner.

Both Kashmir and Rakhine are the scenes of political failure. For decades, India used to be a democratic ‘model’ for newly-independent countries taking the path of democracy (or returning to it, in the case of Myanmar). In the ongoing contest with China, India was said to have the edge by being a flourishing democracy. I wonder how people would see it now.

Conclusion

But then I would not be doing justice to my country and to friends if I were not to advance breakthrough approaches of my own.

General elections are due next year. Yes, Myanmar is still an electoral democracy, but this is a stage that an electorate lacking in sophistication has to go through on the way to a mature and stable democracy. Most importantly, the present two-party stranglehold has to be broken. The prevailing party system is in its sunset, and calling for new parties in the same mould is more than obtuse. If you can control one-third of the seats in Parliament, the two-party system can be balanced and countered. Authoritarian tendencies can and must be countered. One important lesson to be gleaned from what the Modi government did on Jammu and Kashmir is the ominous risk of a single political party enjoying a big majority in the legislature.

The youth population in Myanmar is tired, exasperated with the political system, and ready for real change. So are many ethnic parties, and youthful aspirations can become cross-cutting. Land is another unifying issue.

The ethnic nationalities should have learned by now the unhappy consequences of voting for the duo of parties. They can make a start by ensuring that chief ministers are no longer centrally-appointed. India’s model of having a governor and chief minister in each state should be widely discussed.

Setting up a monist, ethno-nationalist, non-inclusive and majoritarian political system may allow you to gain enough votes to propel you to power, but it can never be good for a country beyond the short-term.

#Southeast Asia #Burma #Myanmar #Nationalism #Ethnicity #Politics

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mideastsoccer · 5 years

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A bird’s eye view of Asia: A continental landscape of minorities in peril

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Patreon, Podbean and Castbox.

Many in Asia look at the Middle East with a mixture of expectation of stable energy supplies, hope for economic opportunity and concern about a potential fallout of the region’s multiple violent conflicts that are often cloaked in ethnic, religious and sectarian terms.

Yet, a host of Asian nations led by men and women, who redefine identity as concepts of exclusionary civilization, ethnicity, and religious primacy rather than inclusive pluralism and multiculturalism, risk sowing the seeds of radicalization rooted in the despair of population groups that are increasingly persecuted, disenfranchised and marginalized.

Leaders like China’s Xi Jingping, India’s Narendra Modi, and Myanmar’s Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi, alongside nationalist and supremacist religious figures ignore the fact that crisis in the Middle East is rooted in autocratic and authoritarian survival strategies that rely on debilitating manipulation of national identity on the basis of sectarianism, ethnicity and faith-based nationalism.

A bird’s eye view of Asia produces a picture of a continental landscape strewn with minorities on the defensive whose positioning as full-fledged members of society with equal rights and opportunities is either being eroded or severely curtailed.

It also highlights a pattern of responses by governments and regional associations that opt for a focus on pre-emptive security, kicking the can down the road and/or silent acquiescence rather than addressing a wound head-on that can only fester, making cures ever more difficult.

To be sure, multiple Asian states, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have at various times opened their doors to refugees.

Similarly, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) disaster management unit has focused on facilitating and streamlining repatriation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

But a leaked report by the unit, AHA Centre, in advance of last June’s ASEAN summit was criticized for evading a discussion on creating an environment in which Rohingya would be willing to return.

The criticism went to the core of the problem: Civilizationalist policies, including cultural genocide, isolating communities from the outside world, and discrimination will at best produce simmering anger, frustration and despair and at worst mass migration, militancy and/or political violence.

A Uyghur member of the Communist Party for 30 years who did not practice his religion, Ainiwa Niyazi, would seem to be the picture-perfect model of a Chinese citizen hailing from the north-western province of Xinjiang.

Yet, Mr Niyazi was targeted in April of last year for re-education, one of at least a million Turkic Muslims interned in detention facilities where they are forced to internalize Xi Jinping thought and repudiate religious norms and practices in what constitutes the most frontal assault on a faith in recent history.

If past efforts, including an attempt to turn Kurds into Turks by banning use of Kurdish as a language that sparked a still ongoing low level insurgency, is anything to go by, China’s ability to achieve a similar goal with greater brutality is questionable.

“Most Uyghur young men my age are psychologically damaged. When I was in elementary school surrounded by other Uyghurs, I was very outgoing and active. Now I feel like I have been broken… Quality of life is now about feeling safe,” said Alim, a young Uyghur, describing to Adam Hunerven, a writer who focuses on the Uyghurs, arrests of his friends and people trekking south to evade the repression in Xinjiang cities.

Travelling in the region in 2014, an era in which China was cracking down on Uyghurs but that predated the institutionalization of the re-education camps, Mr. Hunerven saw that “the trauma people experienced in the rural Uyghur homeland was acute. It followed them into the city, hung over their heads and affected the comportment of their bodies. It made people tentative, looking over their shoulders, keeping their heads down. It made them tremble and cry.”

There is little reason to assume that anything has since changed for the better. On the contrary, not only has the crackdown intensified, fear and uncertainty has spread to those lucky enough to live beyond the borders of China. Increasingly, they risk being targeted by the long arm of the Chinese state that has pressured their host countries to repatriate them.

Born and raised in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, Rahima Akter, one of the few women to get an education among the hundreds of thousands who fled what the United Nations described as ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, saw her dreams and potential as a role model smashed when she was this month expelled from university after recounting her story publicly.

Ms. Akter gained admission to Cox’s Bazar International University (CBIU) on the strength of graduating from a Bangladeshi high school, a feat she could only achieve by sneaking past the camp's checkpoints, hiding her Rohingya identity, speaking only Bengali, dressing like a Bangladeshi, and bribing Bangladeshi public school officials for a placement.

Ms Akter was determined to escape the dire warnings of UNICEF, the United Nations’ children agency, that Rohingya refugee children risked becoming “a lost generation.”

Ms. Akter’s case is not an isolated incident but part of a refugee policy in an environment of mounting anti-refugee sentiment that threatens to deprive Rohingya refugees who refuse to return to Myanmar unless they are guaranteed full citizenship of any prospects.

In a move that is likely to deepen a widespread sense of abandonment and despair, Bangladeshi authorities, citing security reasons, this month ordered the shutting down of mobile services and a halt to the sale of SIM cards in Rohingya refugee camps and restricted Internet access. The measures significantly add to the isolation of a population that is barred from travelling outside the camps.

Not without reason, Bangladeshi foreign minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen, has blamed the international community for not putting enough pressure on Myanmar to take the Rohingyas back.

The UN “should go to Myanmar, especially to Rakhine state, to create conditions that could help these refugees to go back to their country. The UN is not doing the job that we expect them to do,” Mr. Abdul Momen said.

The harsh measures are unlikely to quell increased violence in the camps and continuous attempts by refugees to flee in search of better pastures.

Suspected Rohingya gunmen last month killed a youth wing official of Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League party. Two refugees were killed in a subsequent shootout with police.

The plight of the Uyghurs and the Rohingya repeats itself in countries like India with its stepped up number of mob killings that particularly target Muslims, threatened stripping of citizenship of close to two million people in the state of Assam, and unilateral cancellation of self-rule in Kashmir.

Shiite Muslims bear the brunt of violent sectarian attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Malaysia, Shiites, who are a miniscule minority, face continued religious discrimination.

The Islamic Religious Department in Selangor, Malaysia’s richest state, this week issued a sermon that amounts to a mandatory guideline for sermons in mosques warning against “the spread of Shia deviant teachings in this nation… The Muslim ummah (community of the faithful) must become the eyes and the ears for the religious authorities when stumbling upon activities that are suspicious, disguising under the pretext of Islam,” the sermon said.

Malaysia, one state where discriminatory policies are unlikely to spark turmoil and political violence, may be the exception that confirms the rule.

Ethnic and religious supremacism in major Asian states threatens to create breeding grounds for violence and extremism. The absence of effective attempts to lessen victims’ suffering by ensuring that they can rebuild their lives and safeguard their identities in a safe and secure environment, allows wounds to fester.

Permitting Ms. Akter, the Rohingya university student, to pursue her dream, would have been a low-cost, low risk way of offering Rohingya youth an alternative prospect and at the very least a reason to look for constructive ways of reversing what is a future with little hope.

Bangladeshi efforts to cut off opportunities in the hope that Rohingya will opt for repatriation have so far backfired. And repatriation under circumstances that do not safeguard their rights is little else than kicking the can down the road.

Said human rights advocate Ewelina U. Ochab: “It is easy to turn a blind eye when the atrocities do not happen under our nose. However, we cannot forget that religious persecution anywhere in the world is a security threat to everyone, everywhere.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture

#ASIA #refugees #China (PRC)#china #xinjiang #Xi Jinping #Myanmar #rohingya #india #Muslims #Kashmir #modi #Narendra Modi #malaysia #shiia #islam

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hdoluvr99-blog · 5 years

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Starting off HDO 301

Since starting HDO 301, I’ve started noticing intricacies in everyday relationships, whether they be with friends, family, or professors. It truly is an interesting experience to take this class first semester of my freshman year, a time where one can see a plethora of relationships forming and sometimes falling apart within a matter of days. At the same time these relationships are forming in this environment, people are interacting and defining norms and standards for their relationships. Especially when doing the assignment where we observed relationships in a public setting through the lens of Fiske’s four relationship types, my eyes were opened to these hidden intricacies. Transactions and exchanges are vitally important to pay attention to when trying to understand the inner-workings of relationships; the mere way someone could borrow a spoon from someone or buy a bagel sets subconscious expectations with the other person in the transaction.

One experience I had in my social life at UT this first semester clearly showed me the importance of transactions in everyday relationships. I had been steadily hanging out with one friend from orientation for the first couple weeks of school and the next week, the workload got particularly heavy so we both didn’t see each other much. Unexpectedly, she told me that she was mad at my lack of effort to hang out with her, even when she hadn’t reached out to me either. Her outburst of anger caught me off guard, but we’ve since hung out and she’s not mad at me anymore. Although this turn of events seems trivial and unnecessary to talk about, I think it showed me how important “give and take” is in a relationship and how different people may have different expectations of how you “give and take.” Even though hanging out with another person isn’t necessarily a transaction of goods, time spent with another person is still time, and time is a very valuable resource. This small situation was an interesting experience to have while taking HDO 301 because I noticed how applicable the ideas taught in the class are to everyday life.

I’ve also realized that Human Dimensions of Organizations play into all of my other classes seamlessly. When learning about the Native Americans’ cultural unity and lack of private property and in pre-colonial North America in HIS 315K, I noticed that the relationships among their communities could be defined as communal sharing. When learning about the pleas of Asian-Americans calling for the abolition of discriminatory anti-immigration laws, I observed how the Asian Americans were essentially in a large-scale negotiation with the United States government; in one excerpt of “Appeal” from the Chinese Equal Rights League, they even begin naming trade-offs they’d take in exchange for the laws’ abolitions. When learning about Marx’s Communist Manifesto in UGS 303, I saw how Marx structured communist society in a way that almost perfectly describes communal sharing relationships: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Human Dimensions of Organizations truly does fit into various disciplines and I’ve found it to be applicable in every single class I’m taking this semester.

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jameytulk4158-blog · 5 years

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HIV Updates.

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whatisonthemoonarchive · 3 years

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But Moon's relationships with drug-tainted gangsters and corrupt right-wing politicians go back to the early days of his Unification Church in Asia. Moon's Korea-based church made its first important inroads in Japan in the early 1960s after gaining the support of Ryoichi Sasakawa, a leader of the Japanese yakuza crime syndicate who once hailed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as "the perfect fascist." In Japan and Korea, the shadowy yakuza ran lucrative drug smuggling, gambling and prostitution rings.

The Sasakawa connection brought Moon both converts and clout because Sasakawa was a behind-the-scenes leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party. On the international scene, Sasakawa helped found the Asian People's Anti-Communist League, which united the heroin-stained leadership of Nationalist China with rightists from Korea, Japan and elsewhere in Asia. [For details, see Yakuza by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro]

In 1966, the Asian league evolved into the World Anti-Communist League with the inclusion of former Nazis from Europe, overt racialists from the United States and "death squad" operatives from Latin America, along with more traditional conservatives.

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whatisonthemoon · 1 year

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This episode of Things Observed with Recluse is even more detail-filled than his earlier, brief overview of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Recluse has been studying the parapolitical aspects of the Unification Church and the Religious Right for years, and the seriousness of his research is evident in this episode.

EPISODE LINK: World Anti-Communist League feat. Recluse: International Drug Trafficking, Nazis, Ukraine, the China Lobby and the Fascist International

Today I am joined with Steve Snyder, the host of The Farm podcast, the man who runs the VISUP blog and the author of A Special Relationship: Trump, Epstein, And the Secret History of the Anglo-American Establishment. He is also one of the authors of Strange Tales of the Parapolitical: Postwar Nazis, Mercenaries, and Other Secret History. In addition to buying his books you can read some of his work by visiting visupview.blogspot.com.In this episode Recluse joins us to discuss the World Anti-Communist League. We cover the groups that would come together to form the WACL such as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the Asian Peoples Anti-Communist League and the Unification Church or better known in America as the Moonies. We also discuss WACL's and it's founders relationship to the international opium trade. We discuss people like the Yakuza gangster and fascist drug lord Yoshio Kodama and the unlikely partnership he would form with Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-Shek and how they along with other WACL members would dominate the global opium trade. Not only did some in the WACL have ties to the drug trade through opium but also through the cocaine trade. We discuss some of those involved in WACL and the distribution of cocaine. We also discuss how the WACL relates to Latin American Death Squads, the Mexican Esoteric Nazi order of the Tecos, the China Lobby which served as a kind of precursor to the Israel Lobby, Claire Chennault and the flying tigers, Air America and CIA drug trafficking, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalist and how that relates to the current Russia/Ukraine conflict and so much more. Recluse is astoundingly smart, and this episode is absolutely jam packed with information. Also, there is some fun stuff about how Recluse got into researching the parapolitical as well as what separates the WACL from other think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. So, join us to learn about the shadowy group that the conspiratorial right won't touch with a ten-foot pole, the World Anti-Communist League.

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

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The rise of the contemporary U.S. Right was not the result of purely domestic developments but an outgrowth of transnational interchange. For decades, its pioneers were involved in an “anticommunist international” that provided them with foreign models and inspiration in the fashioning of their emerging agenda (p. 2). Their vision was global, their aspirations no less revolutionary than those of the Left, and their movement self-identity was cross-border. Yet this “imagined community, a global anticommunist brotherhood,” was also rent by internal disagreements that prevented it from ever being completely controlled from the United States (p. 3).

These are the main theses of Kyle Burke's unusually important book, probably the most detailed, perceptive, and comprehensively documented account ever produced of transnational networking and organizing by U.S. conservatives. Throughout, the focus is on the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), a worldwide organization created in 1967 through which these conservatives pushed their agendas and had them reshaped from abroad. In recounting this organization's story, Burke weaves expertly between the different national, regional, and ideological contexts of its principal member bodies—its variously named U.S. chapter, the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the Asian Peoples' Anti-Communist League, and the Confederación Anticomunista Latinoamericana. The result is an unparalleled view into a transnational community dedicated to the rollback of communism by any and all means, preferably by coordinated covert and paramilitary guerrilla action.

#wacl

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jack1998sstuff · 3 years

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Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century.

During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—formed the Viet Minh, or the League for the Independence of Vietnam.

Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho’s Viet Minh forces immediately rose up, taking over the northern city of Hanoi and declaring a Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with Ho as president.

Seeking to regain control of the region, France backed Emperor Bao and set up the state of Vietnam in July 1949, with the city of Saigon as its capital.

Both sides wanted the same thing: a unified Vietnam. But while Ho and his supporters wanted a nation modeled after other communist countries, Bao and many others wanted a Vietnam with close economic and cultural ties to the West.

Did you know? According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans.

The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades.

After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. The French loss at the battle ended almost a century of French colonial rule in Indochina.

The subsequent treaty signed in July 1954 at a Geneva conference split Vietnam along the latitude known as the 17th Parallel (17 degrees north latitude), with Ho in control in the North and Bao in the South. The treaty also called for nationwide elections for reunification to be held in 1956.

In 1955, however, the strongly anti-communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem pushed Emperor Bao aside to become president of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam (GVN), often referred to during that era as South Vietnam.

With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower had pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam.

With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed.

By 1957, the Viet Cong and other opponents of Diem’s repressive regime began fighting back with attacks on government officials and other targets, and by 1959 they had begun engaging the South Vietnamese army in firefights.

In December 1960, Diem’s many opponents within South Vietnam—both communist and non-communist—formed the National Liberation Front (NLF) to organize resistance to the regime. Though the NLF claimed to be autonomous and that most of its members were not communists, many in Washington assumed it was a puppet of Hanoi.

A team sent by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat.

Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kennedy increased U.S. aid, though he stopped short of committing to a large-scale military intervention.

By 1962, the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam had reached some 9,000 troops, compared with fewer than 800 during the 1950s.

In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.S.-South Vietnamese war effort in the south was fought primarily on the ground, largely under the command of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon.

Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops as possible rather than trying to secure territory. By 1966, large areas of South Vietnam had been designated as “free-fire zones,” from which all innocent civilians were supposed to have evacuated and only enemy remained. Heavy bombing by B-52 aircraft or shelling made these zones uninhabitable, as refugees poured into camps in designated safe areas near Saigon and other cities.

Even as the enemy body count (at times exaggerated by U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities) mounted steadily, DRV and Viet Cong troops refused to stop fighting, encouraged by the fact that they could easily reoccupy lost territory with manpower and supplies delivered via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Cambodia and Laos. Additionally, supported by aid from China and the Soviet Union, North Vietnam strengthened its air defenses.

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 2 years

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Happiness ginseng from earth-conquering Moonies – Japan 1978

by John Roberts Far Eastern Economic Review June 23, 1978 pages 57, 59 and 60.

BROWSING through a Tokyo department store a few weeks ago, I was accosted by a young lady, clad in traditional Korean costume, selling ginseng extract. It was excellent — so good that I took the trouble to decipher the fine print on the label to learn the source. The name of the company — Shiawase Shoji (Happiness Company) [Happy World] — sounded vaguely familiar: it was an affiliate of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, otherwise known as the Unification Church. I had been touched (for a stiff ¥10,000 [US$44]) by the self-anointed “Reverend” Moon Sun Myung, founder and Messiah of the quasi-Christian evangelical creed that is out to conquer the earth. That was humiliating enough, but subsequently I learned that the Unification Church was really an organ of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and possibly nurtured by the American CIA.

It is all too easy to become ensnared by the ubiquitous Moon Machine, whose moving parts are known by a variety of names. In the US and internationally there are (or were) the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, Day of Hope, Radio of Free Asia, Pioneer Academy, Asian People’s Anticommunist League, International Conference for Unity of the Sciences, Project Unity, One World Crusade, National Prayer and Fast for the Watergate Crisis, American Youth for a Just Peace (in Vietnam), Korean Folk Ballet, Little Angels of Korea, Freedom Leadership Foundation, International Congress for World Peace, Diplomatic National Bank, the News World and so on.

In Japan, most of the names are different. The Unification Church is known variously as Sekai Toitsu Kyokai, Toitsu Genri, or Genri Undo, with numerous variations. The main adjuncts or manifestations of the Church are the Kokusai Shokyo Rengo (International Federation for Victory over Communism or IFFVOC), which is essentially the Japanese chapter or counterpart of the World Anticommunist League/Asian People’s Anticommunist League (WACL/ APACL); and the Genri Group under which various student activities are conducted.

At the master controls is [Osami] Kuboki, a person of obscure antecedents. He is president of the Church, the IFFVOC, and also the International Cultural Foundation. As Henry O. Kuboki he is listed as a large stockholder in the Moon-affiliated Diplomat National Bank in Washington. Many other organizations are under the tight rein of Kuboki and Moon’s inner circle.

In a top position is Professor Juitsu Kitaoka, a leader of the United Nations Association and member of several pro-American rightist organizations. He is described as a violent anti-communist advocating rearmament, stronger police powers and capital punishment for communists, according to Ivan Morris, an authority on the Japanese right wing. Kitaoka is a long-time associate of Dr Tetsuzo Watanabe, a former film tycoon whose ideas are no less violent. Organiser of the APACL in Japan, Watanabe became international president of the WACL/APACL, the IFFVOC’s alter ego. Watanabe was closely connected with US Army intelligence and maintained relations with prominent McCarthyites in the US.

Pastor Moon Sun Myung boasts a flock of 2,000,000 believers in 120 countries, with 380,000 in South Korea, 300,000 in the US and 260,000 in Japan. [Some reports in the US state there were never more than 6,000 core members in the 1970s.] But some of the church’s official figures are mutually contradictory and there is little correspondence between the figures of headquarters and the branches.

It claimed a membership of 260,000 in 455 congregations throughout Japan in 1976. This would make it about 1/40th the size of Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan’s “new religions.” The IFFVOC, the movement’s action corps, purports to have some 300,000 members and appears to comprise the WACL/APACL though the latter has a separate existence on paper. Less numerous than either the spiritual or the action arms, but perhaps more important ideologically, is the student contingent which has been called, variously, Genri Undo (Principles Movement), Genri Kenkyukai (Principles Research Society) and Genri Group. Genri Group says it has about 5,000 hard-core members but that it can mobilise 15,000 members at one time and is the second largest student group following the Communist Party-affiliated Democratic Youth League, the Japan Times reported in 1977.

▲ Pastor Moon at New York’s Yankee Stadium.

But there is something odd here. Genri Group claims to be growing, yet in 1971 the same Japan Times reported that Genri Kenkyukai had 33,000 members nationwide. Is it growing or shrinking?

At any rate, the student and youth movement is what the Moon Machine is all about. Genri Undo was established in Japan in 1960, the year of the great student uprising against the US-Japan military alliance. At that time, the student movement was firmly under the control of Zengakuren (the militant students group), which in turn was under strong Communist Party influence. Moral Rearmament (MRA) made strong and subtle attempts to win over the Zengakuren students to an anti-communist position, but its bland, middle-class image was not appealing. One hypothesis is that the cruder, more fanatical approach of Moon and his allies was considered to be more effective. The rise of Genri Undo accompanied the gradual decline and fragmentation of Zengakuren.

Of course, Genri Undo did not do all this alone. The full weight of the Government, the police and the legal system bore down on the universities which formerly had enjoyed considerable autonomy. Genri leaders, by their own admission, have been collaborating with the KCIA, and their movement worked in alliance with other student organizations, notably the centrist Soka Gakkai and ultra-nationalist groups such as underworld boss Yoshio Kodama’s Youth Thought Study Society, and of course the IFFVOC, established jointly by Moon and gambling czar Ryoichi Sasakawa in 1967 with the participation of several prewar ultranationalist, terrorist and underworld bosses. Later, however, under president Sasakawa, a more presentable line-up of complaisant politicians, businessmen and scholars was mustered.

▲ Left to right: Won-bok Choi (a ‘second wife’ of Moon), Hak Ja Han, Sun Myung Moon, Ryoichi Sasakawa, unknown, Hyo-won Eu (who wrote the 1957 Divine Principle and was the main lecturer and organizer of the UC in Korea in the late 1950s and 1960s) and Osami Kuboki (leader of the UC of Japan) at Gimpo airport, Seoul.

The IFFVOC was based originally on Sasakawa’s Federation of Motorboat Racing Associations, which grosses US$5 billion a year and employs tens of thousands of people, mostly young men. It appears that the IFFVOC serves Sasakawa as a private police force for his motor-boat courses and also assists his favourite conservative candidates during their election campaigns. Sasakawa’s remarks indicate that he considers it as a patriotic militia in reserve for political crises, similar to Hitler’s brownshirts and the uniformed militarist party that Sasakawa, a self-proclaimed fascist, organized during the 1930s.

Not overlooking the university faculties, the Moon Machine established the World Peace Academy (WPA) in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The Japan Chapter, set up in 1974, is reported to include among its consultants James Stewart of the Asia Foundation (an old CIA front) and Masahide Kanayama, a paid lobbyist of the South Korean Government and allegedly of the KCIA. One of the WPA’s activities is the International Congress for World Peace, to be held in Japan this summer under the co-sponsorship of the International Cultural Foundation (ICF), another Moon front. The WPA seems to have enlisted the active support or participation of the potent Japan Federation of Employers Associations, the Japan Productivity Centre, the Nomura Research Institute and the Mitsubishi Research Institute in its National Goals project for the study of Japan’s strategy in the 1980s.

▲ UC members who sold Yewha guns

The Moon Machine in Japan operates a number of commercial ventures, which include trading companies, tourist agencies and publishing enterprises. In addition to the Happiness Company [Happy World] mentioned above there is a trading firm known as Toitsu Sangyo (Unification Industries) which raised eyebrows several years ago by importing several hundred shotguns and powerful air rifles manufactured by the Reverend Moon’s munitions factories in South Korea which assemble M-16 rifles on a knockdown basis under US licence and manufacture parts for the same weapons. Significantly, the shotguns and air rifles mentioned above were imported for the militant IFFVOC, presumably to be used (when Der Tag / The Day comes) against targets whom the Messiah chooses to designate as communists.

According to the church, Toitsu Sangyo has 30 employees and a turnover of US$7 million from machinery, building materials, firearms, and allegedly some narcotics. Shiawase Shoji, with 30 employees and a turnover of US$17 million, handles health food, aphrodisiacs and art objects. Profits must be high, because the markup on ginseng is astronomical and most of the work (except book-keeping) is done by unpaid Moonies.

The Unification Church in Japan declared an income of about ¥3 billion in 1975. Most of it was from members who contribute 10% of their monthly earnings to it. The action arm, IFFVOC, claims that its activities are supported by dues of ¥1,000 monthly from each of 380,000 members. In 1975, that could have added up to US$16 million exclusive of other sources such as a grant of US$160,000 from the church. But here again, the official spokesmen are conflicting and ambiguous.

▲ Ryoichi Sasakawa: Self-proclaimed fascist. Seen here with Mussolini

This picture is admittedly no more than an out-of-focus snapshot of the tip of the iceberg. Some of the Japan connections have been revealed or hinted at in the Koreagate investigations, but so far there has been no general exposé of what informed observers regard as a long-standing conspiracy of the KCIA and its extensions, including the Unification Church, to corrupt and subvert the Japanese Government. However, it has been reported that 200 Japanese right-wing politicians receive financial support from the Unification Church and its affiliates, or directly from the KCIA. This may be an understatement since at least 2,000 prominent Japanese politicians, businessmen and scholars as well as underworld bosses lend their support to Moon’s movement.

Let it not be thought that these adherents to the movement are gullible Moonies. They tend more towards Shintoism and conservative Buddhism than to evangelical Christianity, but those whose ideology is identifiable have certain familiar traits in common. For one thing, they loathe communism, an ideology that they tend to confuse with liberalism, and they are not fastidious about the means used in suppressing what they call dangerous thought, especially when profits or boodle [ = money, especially that gained or spent illegally or improperly] are involved.

Japanese reporting on the doings of the Moon Machine has been so scanty as to suggest a taboo in the daily press. However, one weekly magazine, Shincho, gave a glimpse of the upper-crust of Moonism that provides some idea of the cult’s influence. The event, said to be the largest banquet ever held at the Imperial Hotel, took place on May 7, 1974. It was hosted by the executive committee of The Day of Hope (Japan). (Its chairman, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, has been a leading figure in the WACL/APACL also.)

▲ Sun Myung Moon with Nobusuke Kishi (center); on the right is Osami Kuboki.

The guest of honour was Moon himself, and 1,700 prominent Japanese showed up to hear him speak. The guest list was not published, and the press was rigorously excluded, but among those reported present was (then) finance minister Takeo Fukuda, now Prime Minister. It is believed that most of the guests were executives doing business with South Korea (or ROK) and Taiwan, and conservative dietmen belonging to groups comprising the ROK-Taiwan lobby.

In this respect, it must be remembered that Kishi has long headed the Japan-ROK Cooperation Council through which most big deals between the two countries must be channelled if they are to be concluded successfully. And it is no accident that the principal figures in the council have been leaders or front men in a succession of very similar right-wing organizations from 1950s onward.

It may be recalled that Kishi, once a key figure in General Tojo’s World War II cabinet, became one of the most passionate spokesmen for Dr Frank Buchman’s Moral Rearmament (MRA) in 1950s and 1960s. The striking similarity between the moral precepts and secular programmes of MRA and Moon’s church is of interest here because the latter was born as an international movement at the very time when MRA was swiftly declining in Japan. Following the upheaval over the Security Treaty in 1960, which forced his resignation as prime minister, Kishi declared with characteristic hyperbole: “But for Moral Rearmament, Japan would be under communist control today.” Curiously, little was heard about MRA after the early 1960s. Instead, there was much bombast about the Asian People’s Anticommunist League, in which Kishi played the same role as elder statesman and spokesman. There are reports that in 1959 or thereabouts Moon played go-between for an alliance between the MRA leadership and the APACL. When the World Anticommunist League and IFFVOC were formed in the late 1966 and 1967 respectively, Kishi again came to the fore, and today he is front man for the Day of Hope.

page 60: So how did Moon, a country preacher with a criminal record, get into this high-powered act? Only recently, from a well qualified source, I found a plausible answer. In 1959 a confidant and disciple of Moon established the first mission of the Unification Church in Japan. This missionary, whose name is given as Choi Sang-Ik [Papasan Choi] had been held for deportation as an illegal entrant. A benefactor appeared in the person of Ryoichi Sasakawa who wrote a letter of guarantee for Choi, who in turn went out to propagate the faith in Japan and more recently has been an official of the Unification Church in the US.

▲ Choi Sang-Ik (aka Papasan Choi) with his wife in Tokyo.

The Moon Machine’s sponsorship by the KCIA is attested by a CIA report dated February 26, 1965 which states: “Kim Chong Pil organised (sic) the Unification Church . . . while director of the ROK Central Intelligence Agency and has been using the church, with a membership of 27,000, as his political tool.” It is quite clear that the invasion by President Park’s secret police was condoned and facilitated by Japanese military, police and intelligence authorities who have been fully aware of the Moon Machine’s illegal activities in collusion with the KCIA for years.

The situation is like that in the US where trespasses of the same elements have long been under benign scrutiny by the various intelligence authorities, as demonstrated by the voluminous government-sourced documentation presented during the Koreagate investigation. But observation of illegal activity without intervention is tantamount to collusion or obstruction of justice, and in that sense we can say that the American CIA, FBI and State Department have been accessories to the misdeeds of the Moon Machine. Revelations of the Fraser and Jaworski committees somehow stopped at the water’s edge when it came to exposing well-documented Korean depredations in Japan. Perhaps for diplomatic reasons, the US Government preferred to confine its investigation to events that occurred in the US, ignoring the fact that the Korean scandal is trilateral, with operations that involve and affect all three countries.

Also conspicuously absent from the investigation is evidence linking the CIA with the KCIA, its creation, and its grandchild, the Unification Church.

In court of law, the existence of such a link could not be proved but clues are everywhere. One of them is a series of documents (Supplement to Part 4) submitted in the March 1968 hearings of the Zablocki Committee. They concern a William A. Curtin Jr. and the Korean Freedom and Cultural Foundation. Curtin, an Army intelligence colonel, had been attached to the office of the Secretary of Defence. In 1959-60, he served a tour as adviser to the South Korean Army. In September 1960, he made a brief official trip to Japan and South Korea “where he met various ranking Korean government officials.”

His activities until his retirement in 1962 are not specified, but thereafter he devoted his time to conning prominent Americans into lending their names or financial support to the non-existent Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KCFF). This was nominally to promote friendly relations between the two countries in commemoration of the Korean War, but in practice it was used to raise funds for propaganda, suborning [bribe or otherwise induce (someone) to commit an unlawful act such as perjury] of American politicians and funding KCIA operations in Japan and Korea as well as the US, according to Department of Justice reports.

▲ Yoshio Kodama: Lockheed problems.

The foundation was formally registered in 1964 by Curtin (vice-president) and two American dummy directors. Astonishingly, the two honorary presidents were real presidents — Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower — and the KCCF president was Admiral Arleigh Burke of World War II fame.

The honorary chairman of KCFF was Kim Jong Pil, founder of the KCIA who used the Unification Church as his tool. Serving as vice-presidents were Dr Yang Yu Chan, ROK ambassador to Washington, and (later) Pak Bo Hi, the Reverend Moon’s right-hand man. The board of directors and advisory board — more than 100 persons in all — is a veritable roster of the American political and financial elite. How Curtin, reported by the FBI to be a dipsomaniac and a sick man (he died in 1965), could have assembled such a brilliant array of supporters is puzzling indeed. Probably, the dignitaries did not inquire too deeply into the affairs of the organization whose overt activities included the promotion of the Little Angels of Korea choral group and financial support for the APACL Freedom Centre (APACLFC) in Seoul, which was also a client of Asia Foundation. According to KCCF president Burke, the objectives of the APACLFC were “to pull together cold war specialists from many countries and give training to Asian peoples which will enable them to defend themselves from communist imperialism …”

Another project of KCCF was Radio of Free Asia (ROFA), established in 1966 with General Dwight Eisenhower, Admiral Burke, and Ambassador Chang as honorary heads and Pak Bo Hi as executive director. On the advisory council were six senators, 12 congressmen and eight state governors as well as Richard Nixon and Ed Sullivan. ROFA raised political funds for dubious destinations and beamed pro-American propaganda to Asia during the Vietnam War. The US Department of Justice heard many complaints about ROFA (some emanating from CIA sources) and in 1971 showed signs of investigating it on suspicion of violating the Foreign Registration Act and abusing its privileges as a tax-free foundation. Through divine providence or other means, Pak Bo Hi secured the legal services of Robert Amory Jr, former deputy director of the CIA and a law partner of Thomas G. Corcoran, an adviser to the CIA and a prominent lobbyist for the ROK and Taiwan. The Justice Department dropped the investigation like a radioactive potato, and the KCFF and ROFA continued their work for the KCIA unmolested until the Koreagate investigation brought them out into the shrivelling glare of public opinion.

These revelations do not tell us who or what is behind the Moon Machine’s brash operations in Japan. However, the Fraser Committee in Washington has been under increasing pressure from some quarters to investigate not only the US angle but also corrupt US-Tokyo-Seoul connections.

Some people want to know, for example, why Pak Bo Hi delivered US$3,000 in US$100 bills to Fumiko Ikeda, a Unification Church lecturer, at the office of the Little Angels group in Seoul — on orders from a KCIA chief in Washington. They would like to know also under what circumstances Pak, on several occasions, allegedly brought large sums of cash (as much as US$70,000 per trip) from Tokyo to Washington for investment in the Diplomat National Bank.

And how is it that Mitsuharua Ishii, the president of Toitsu Sangyo — and concurrently publisher of the Church’s Sekai Nippo (World Daily News) claiming 235,000 readers — is listed as a big stockholder in Diplomat National Bank? Whose money is it, and what is it used for?

As these bits of information fester, there are predictions in Washington that this month the Fraser Committee will at last drop the other shoe and expose some of these trilateral capers — possibly to the mortification of Japan’s ruling party. █ __________________________________

A Memoir from the Early Period of the Unification Church of Japan By Rev. Sudo – Page 14

…Mr. (Papa San) Choi…had made a connection with Mr. Sasagawa (a powerful right-wing multi-millionaire businessman, head of the Motorboat Association of Japan)…by the 11th of June, 1963…we began the training session in the motorboat race-camp building that could accommodate more than one hundred trainees…This Toda Training Center was where I worked as a lecturer until the end of my mission in training. (During this period, most of the present Japanese church leaders and members came through these training sessions and decided to join full time. This extensive list included Mr. Oyamada, Mr. Kamiyama, Mr. Furuta, Mr. Sakurai, Mr. Kajikuri, Mr. Ohta and a little later, Dr. Shirnmyo and Dr. Masuda.)

The training session at Toda Center continued until July, 1965.

http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Publications/TodaysWorld/TodaysWorld-91/TodaysWorld-9110.pdf

__________________________________

Ryoichi Sasagawa Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcRAAMsnmYE

__________________________________

How Sun Myung Moon bought protection in Japan

Asian ginseng – there is currently no conclusive evidence supporting any health benefits

How Rev. Moon’s ‘Snakes’ Infested the US by Robert Parry

6,500 Japanese women missing from Moon mass weddings

#ginseng #Japan #UC of Japan #Ryoichi Sasakawa #Ken Sudo

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immaculatasknight · 4 years

Link

But they fought communism...

#Unification Church #cults #CIA #Antibolshevik Block of Nations #Ukraine #Korea #Japan #Georgetown University #money laundering #drug trafficking

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atlasgaveup · 6 years

Text

Don't you know communism has killed millions?!"

DEATHS CAUSED BY CAPITALISM:

Native American Genocide, 1500s-1900s (direct killings and death from plagues; North, Central, and South Americas combined): 100 MILLION [x]

Atlantic Slave Trade, 1500s-1900s (princessbuggie helped with this one): 4 MILLION [x]

September Massacres, France, 1792: 1,200 [x]

Famines in British India, 1837-1900: at least 165 MILLION [x]

Potato Famine/Great Irish Famine, 1845-1852 (an anon helped with this one): 1 MILLION [x]

Cholera Outbreak, Industrial London, 1849: 15,000 [x]

United States Civil War, 1861-1865: at least 600,000 [x]

Building First Transcontinental Railroad, United States, 1863-1869 (princessbuggie helped with this one): at least 1,200 [x]

Belgian Occupation of the Congo, 1886-1908: 10 MILLION [x]

Spanish-American War, 1898: 17,135 [x]

United States 20th Century Coal Mining Industry: 100,000 [x]

Courriéres Mine Disaster, France, 1906: 1,549 [x]

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, 1911 (vivianvivisection helped with this one): 146 [x]

World War I, 1914-1918: 16 MILLION [x]

Building the Hoover Damn, United States, 1922-1936: 112 [x]

Shanghai Massacre of 1927: at least 5,000 presumed dead [x]

United States Intervention in Latin America, 1929-1987 (progressivefem helped with this one): 6 MILLION [x]

The White Terror, Spain, 1936-1975: at least 100,000 [x]

World War II, 1939-1945: at least 60 MILLION [x]

Benxihu Colliery Explosion, China, 1942: 1,549 [x]

Burma Railway, Thailand-Burma, 1943-1947: 106,000 [x]

Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945: at least 245,000 [x]

Bodo League Massacre, Korea, 1950: at least 100,000 [x]

Vietnam War, 1955-1975: 2.3 MILLION [x] [x]

Guatemalan Civil War, 1960-1996 (an anon helped with this one): 200,000 [x]

US Intervention in the Congo, 1964: 1,000 [x]

Indonesian Anti-Communist Purge, 1965-1966: at least 500,000 [x]

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1965-2013: 21,500 [x], 1,000 more Palestinians have been killed in 2014.

Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988: at least 315,000 [x]

Bhopal Disaster, Madhya Pradesh, 1984: 16,000+ [x]

United States Railroad Workers Killed on the Job, 1993-2002 (princessbuggie helped with this one): 1,221 [x]

Rwandan Genocide, 1994: 1 MILLION [x]

United States Deaths Attributed to Cigarette Smoking, 2000-2004: ~1.7 MILLION [x]

War in Afghanistan, 2001-present: 57,457 [x]

Darfur Genocide, 2003-present: 10,000 [x]

Iraq War, 2003-2011: 55,034 [x]

Mexican Drug War, 2006-present: at least 100,000 [x]

United States Workers Killed on the Job in 2012, as reported by OSHA: 4,628 [x]

Hunger (un-feuilly-de-papier helped with this one): 21,000 per day [x], 16,000 of them children [x], 3,000 of them children specifically in India [x].

Worldwide Occupational Deaths: 6,000 per day [x]

Poor shelter, polluted water, inadequate sanitation, often from homelessness (sideeffectsincludenausea helped with this one): 50,000 per day [x]

Occupational Asbestos Exposure: 107,000 per year [x]

International Sex Trafficking: 30,000 per year [x]

“Communist Death Toll,” according to The Black Book of Communism: 94 million

Capitalism Death Toll: 369 million (369,790,731), according only to the statistics I could get sources for. This number doesn’t even scratch the surface.

But, guess what? Tomorrow, we know for sure that capitalism will kill at least 77,000 more people.

You know what? No. Fuck this. I’m sick of clueless young Westeners undermining the deaths under communism to further their argument. My parents lived trough this shit. My grandparents lost half their families during Mao’s reign, were sent to labour camps and beaten and worked half to death and I’m sick people like you ignoring their lives in favour of some cheap argument to prop up communism.

You can argue against capitalism and I won’t say a word against it - but if your argument is based on the idea that communism is somehow the “lesser evil”, thereby completely disregarding the government-sanctioned genocide, famine, violence and oppression that actual people suffered, then you can take several fucking seats - especially if you’ve never experienced that violence, never lost family members to that violence and never seen first-hand what it drives people to.

Because you’re using statistics from over 500 years and across the globe (60 countries going by your stats) to compare to the death toll of what occurred over 50 years and in 11 countries.

95 million is an extremely all-inclusive number and it’s been debated about the historical accuracies and how broadly covers. Even so, a majority of that number is spread out to a few countries in under fifty years.

Now obviously, more than eleven countries have been communist states - but going by the ‘95 million’ statistic, most of the these numbers are split between China under Mao, USSR under Stalin and Cambodia under Khmer Rouge. The rest are rough estimates from about 262 000 to 1.1 million which were under North Korea, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, North Vietnam, Ethiopia.

Communism may have killed less, but the death toll is far more saturated. To break this down a bit. Coming second to none is China:

an estimate of 42 million died in China during the three-year famine of 1958-1961. Historians dispute over the actual number; 15 million is official government numbers but unofficial estimates vary between 23 mil. (Peng) to 46 mil. (Chen), but the closest and most recent estimate is about 45 million by Dikötter, who included deaths from suicide, militia executions and violence.

sidenote: according Yang Jisheng, who estimated 30 million dead from famine, another estimated 40 million ‘failed to be born’, making about 70 million in population loss.

This happened during 3 years. in one country.

and oh yeah, there was also another 92,000 Tibetans killed under Communist Government from Mao to current and another estimated 1.2 million died during the Cultural Revolution from labour camps, prisons, murders and executions (‘61-‘69).

Now, lets look at Russia, coming second place.

not including war casualty, 20-30 million died under Stalin from 1924-1953. Again, numbers vary - some estimates go as high 60 million.

Of those, 1.2 million were from the Great Purge of ‘36-39 (including invasion of Mongolia and purge of XinJiang because guess what, communism doesn’t magically erase a white dude’s sense of imperialism).

Then there were from gulags, deportation and ethnic cleansing (of Jews, Slavs, Romani, Poles, among others).

The rest were deaths from from famine from ‘26-‘38. If we add deaths that occurred during deportations, POW died under care, and death in other Soviet countries during Stalin’s rule, then the average number gets closer to 30 mil.

Not to forget:

2.2 million were killed in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge’s rule, 1975-1979. Half were from famine/disease, half were executions.

Red Terror in Ethiopia: 30,000-500,000 (‘77-‘78)

Collectivisation in Romania: 60,000 to 190,000 (‘47-‘64)

North Vietnam land reform: ca 172,000 (some estimates btw 200,000 to 500,000) (‘53-‘56)

North Korea has no an ‘official’ number, but calculated deaths from 1948-87 were about 1 million. 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine.

The death toll during Mao’s Famine during the Great Leap Forward would be an estimated 52,000 per day, going by 40 million death-toll estimates - and that from one country alone.

During Stalin’s Great Purge, executions were calculated to be 1000 per day.

And you want to compare this to a world-wide conglomerate?

And before you put words in my mouth, I’m not saying a damn thing in defense of capitalism.

You can denounce capitalism all you want, but you need take several steps back and reconsider if you’re going to do so on the backs of people who actually suffered through an oppressive, abusive, totalitarian regime by devaluing their suffering and using it as an example of how communism is the “"lesser evil”“ - especially if you have never lived through it, lost family members or felt the fear of such a regime.

Don’t attribute the death toll to Stalinism or Maoism or say it was ‘wrong form’ of communism. You do not get to cherry pick your flavour of totalitarianism so that it suits your social stance. You do not get to undermine, appropriate and white-wash the human atrocities and genocides committed in the name of communism so that you can cover up the ugly underbelly of how these regimes will work, has worked and is currently working.

These are not statistics for you to brush under the mat so that communism can seem ‘less evil’. People who deported, sent to labour camps, starved to death, sold out by the colleagues, murdered by their students are not collateral fucking damage for make-believe, Westernised idealistic communism.

(and another side-note: the Anti-communism cleansing in Indonesia had fuck-all to do with capitalism and everything to do with anti-Chinese sentiments. These were all tied in with the historical socio-politics at the time, such as the foreign policy of CCCP, the relationship and influence of the Chinese government under Zhou Enlai , and the state of Indonesia’s militarisation under Sukarno that was helped by China. To use their complicated and brutal political and social history that literally nothing to do with Western capitalism and everything to do with East Asian international relations to back your argument is really fucking imperialist.)

I would’ve got an aneurysm trying to elaborate on everything wrong with OP’s post and how it’s stuffed with smug Western imperialism and US-centrism. (So now, all the deaths in Europe and Asia in WW2 were just about ‘capitalism’? Not, I dunno, some ideas of German and Japanese ethnic and racial superiority? Unless you want to tell me racial and ethnic tensions that long-predated capitalism somehow were caused by capitalism? Fuck that bullshit.)

And slavery as a system has been present in human societies long before capitalism was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. It can exist in a non-capitalist society. And let’s just say there were plenty of forced labour camps and gulags in Communist regimes. I mean, if I recall correctly, didn’t the ostensibly “”Capitalist”” World War 2 in Europe begin when Nazi Germany AND the Soviet Union invaded Poland? Maybe because imperialism isn’t tied strictly to a capitalist society though the two can reinforce each other. Or no empires would have existed before the modern era.

TBH I’ve no more patience for people who love glossing over the complexities of the violence suffered by our families just to fit their agenda, especially when these people are trying to appear Oh So Progressive but it’s just Western imperialism on steroids.

My reply to anyone that wants to argue the point that communism is better, is to tell them to pack their bags, denounce their citizenship from the country they despise and ask for asylum in the country of their choice that is currently under communist control. North Korea would be happy to show the wealth of their people. Venezuela would be happy to keep you safe from crime and show the wealth of their people. Name your destination, as long as it’s the communist dictatorship you want. I’ll buy the one way ticket.

there are only two groups of people who desire Communism:

1. Those who never lived under it, and

2. Those who lived under it and had power over others.

That should tell you something, but you’re a fucking idiot.

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