In a divided Japan,Shinzo Abe’s assassin finds his target

Tokyo: There are three bullet holes outside a church in Nara,Japan. Down an alleyway in this middle-class suburb of a picturesque city,the assassin who killed Shinzo Abe practised his shots before murdering Japan’s longest-serving prime minister and sending the country into turmoil.

Four Australian prime ministers – Anthony Albanese,Malcolm Turnbull,Tony Abbott and John Howard – fly into a political storm on Monday as they pay tribute to a man whose death outraged the world,but whose legacy and political connections to a church have divided Japan.

This is the only assassination in recent memory where sympathy for the victim has matched the empathy for the assassin,whose family lost their fortune to a church that has connections with 179 politicians in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and has sent thousands of its followers into debt and despair.

Sota Niwa,a high school student from Hiroshima who came to Nara to pay his respects to Shinzo Abe.

Sota Niwa,a high school student from Hiroshima who came to Nara to pay his respects to Shinzo Abe. Christopher Jue

Abe was shot dead in July by Tetsuya Yamagami,a 41-year-old former member of Japan’s self-defence forces who had watched his mother donate more than a million dollars to the Unification Church,a cult that frequently drives its victims into financial ruin while delivering the votes of its followers to the Japanese government.

Abe,along with his brother Nobuo Kishi and other senior members of the LDP,had given speeches to the church,legitimising its practices and endearing its followers to the government. The fallout since the death of its talisman has not bolstered the Japanese government,but has instead weakened it. More than 60 per cent of the population are opposed to the $18 million state funeral that will be held on Tuesday and the government’s popularity is tanking – approval ratings are down to 29 per cent.

Two days before Japan’s first state funeral since 1965,at the site of Abe’s assassination in Nara,there are no flowers or memorials. “Don’t stop here” signs mark the crossing,where Abe was shot with a homemade shotgun as high school students watched on from the Starbucks and the see-through windows at Sanwa shopping centre next door. Three months on from that fatal midsummer morning at Yamato-Saidaiji Station,some walk slowly and some stop and pray. Others protest.

Mamina Isobe near where former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara.

Mamina Isobe near where former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara.Christopher Jue

“We thought this would be a good place to choose because lots of people may be visiting here with different feelings. Some people are for Abe,some are against,” says Mamina Isobe,a 48-year-old who spends her afternoon at the crossing handing out flyers criticising Abe’s legacy. “There are people who are supporting us,saying that we feel sympathy for the suspect.”

High school student Sota Niwa says Abe was the only prime minister he had ever known. The 18-year-old stopped off at the assassination site on his way from Hiroshima to Osaka. “I thought that I should pray and pay some gratitude. For me,there has been no other prime minister,” he says.

“He was quite an influential person. He stepped up Japan’s presence on the international stage and helped the economy through ‘Abenomics’.”

But even Niwa finds it difficult to justify the links with the Unification Church. “Of course,it’s quite important to cut off the relationship with an organisation that damages other people,” he says.

Tetsuya Yamagami,accused of killing Shinzo Abe,is escorted by police in Nara.

Tetsuya Yamagami,accused of killing Shinzo Abe,is escorted by police in Nara.Japan News-Yomiuri

Even Abe’s harshest critics say Yamagami’s actions were abhorrent. But Yamagami and his family were damaged by a church that has spent decades building its empire in Japan.

The Yamagami family home in the comfortable middle-class suburb of Hiramatsu was once surrounded by streets filled with manicured hedges and roses.

By the time Yamagami shot Abe in July,he was living in an 18-square metre flat not far from Yamato-Saidaiji station,where he built homemade guns and bombs after midnight. The first his neighbours heard of him was when police barged into his room,leaving behind dents on the door that are visible today. “It was a shocking thing,” said one neighbour,who asked not to be identified.

A series of dents can be seen on the front door of where assassin Tetsuya Yamagami used to live in Nara,Japan.

A series of dents can be seen on the front door of where assassin Tetsuya Yamagami used to live in Nara,Japan.

Yamagami’s family is typical of victims of the Unification Church. His mother donated more than a million dollars to the church from insurance payouts and land sales for the promise of salvation. That left her family in poverty and her son unable to afford to go to university. He then descended further into mental illness after the suicide of his older brother.

Tokyo lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi,who has been following the church for 35 years,has found more than 34,537 victims in Japan so far who have donated the equivalent of more than $1.3 billion. Eighty per cent of them are older wealthy or middle-income women,a generation that has retained traditional gender roles. Targeted by the church during the day when their husbands are at work,they have handed over fortunes to a church with its headquarters in South Korea that warns they and their families face eternal damnation if they don’t pay for Japan’s sins.

North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw reports from outside the door of Tetsuya Yamagami,who assassinated Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8,2022.

The church had a compelling message to sell – Japan committed war crimes during its occupation of Korea and World War II. Its congregation now had to atone through donations. It found a gap in Japan – a country with a dwindling number of devout religious followers – where the local saying goes Japanese are “born Shinto,married Christian,die Buddhist”. Japan is the South Korean church’s largest market and biggest source of income.

“For the believers in Japan it is like the gods ask them for money,so they have to do it,” says Yamaguchi.

“They say if you don’t have the key to open the door of the cage then your families will suffer.

“They thought they were doing the right thing. Then they ask their families and their friends to do it. When they find out it is just a lie,they have breakdowns.”

The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age this week visited the church in Nara where Yamagami practised his shooting,but its doors were closed. In a sign that the commercial fallout from the assassination may be more significant than the political,the Unification Church is abandoning the premises. Inside a yellow poster says,“the mother of peace will wipe out the tears of human beings”. But fewer humans are coming here now. One neighbour who lives next to one of its larger churches says only two to three people visit every few days.

Tokyo lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi,a member of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales.

Tokyo lawyer Hiroshi Yamaguchi,a member of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales.Viola Kam

“They have stopped gaining followers,” says Yamaguchi. But they still need money to finance their mass weddings in Korea and hundreds of premises around Japan. “They are asking the Japanese church to give them more money,” says Yamaguchi.

The church has denied any wrongdoing. Hideyuki Teshigawara,a church executive,said on Thursday that the church would now “take into consideration the financial situation of followers and ensure that donations are not excessive”.

Outside the church in Nara,the bullet holes have been painted over but deep scars in the wall remain. Japan’s political reckoning will not be so easily fixed.

Dozens of foreign leaders are expected to arrive in Tokyo from Monday for a funeral that few locals want. Protesters will gather outside the Nippon Budokan,where the ceremony will be held,and on the streets of Tokyo.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after his last visit to Tokyo in May.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after his last visit to Tokyo in May.Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese is due to spend only 24 hours in the Japanese capital,perhaps sensing that the mood here is very different from London,where millions lined the streets after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. On Tuesday,he will pay his respects to a leader much admired abroad,but who at home is more controversial in death than he was in life.

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Eryk Bagshaw is the North Asia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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