I believe
this incident has had the greatest impact on the nation's
organized crime syndicates in recent years--I mean, the rampant
shooting which resulted in three civilians and an ex-gangster
dead in Maebashi, Gumma Prefecture, 110km north of Tokyo.
The target of the shooting had been Kunio Goto, a 55 year-old
former boss of a yakuza group and also one of the high-ranking
member of Omaeda Ikka, in the Inagawa Kai.
The Inagawa Kai is one of the nation's largest
yakuza organization. The Omaeda Ikka is believed to have had
a strong connection with an assasin who had shot a top ranking
member of Sumiyoshi Kai--another large crime syndicate--to
death at a funeral home in Katsushika, Tokyo in August 2001.
Many observers including myself believe the
Maebashi shooting was directly connected to the incident.
The Maebashi shooting was a typical vendetta, takes place
once in a while in the yakuza society.
But this one has a few clear distinctions
from the similar shootings in the past. First all, a multiple
number of civilians were gunned down along with gangsters.
There had been cases where a bystander had been shot to death
in an act of vendetta. For example, a bystander went down
when Masaru Takumi, one of the top ranking executive of the
Yamaguchi Gumi, the nation's largest yakuza organization,
was slain in a Kobe hotel in 1997. However, only one victim
had been a civilian in each of the past shootings. I cannot
recall any cases where more than two civilians were killed
with gangsters.
Why? My theory goes as follows: The shooting
took place in a bar and a parking lot late in the night. This
means that the assasin, who had been hiding in the dark moved
to somewhere lighted up. It takes one to adjust his eyesight
in such a situation. Under the circumstances, the assasin,
who should pinpoint his aim to the target was unable to do
so and just pulled the trigger at random to a direction where
he believed the target would be sitting.
Goto had survived a previous shooting, in
which he had been attacked by a group of four gunmen at a
golf course. He was badly wounded, but made it. Anonymous
sources said that Goto was lying low on the floor to dodge
bullets when the assasin stormed the Maebashi bar because
he had heard shots fired in the parking lot outside. The former
boss must have been painfully aware of the fact that he had
become a target of a vendetta.
On the other hand, from the assasins' point
of view, they cannot afford missing the same target twice.
This was probably why more than 10 shots were fired in the
incident.
But Goto succeeded to survive for the second
time, another unprecedented disgrace. And this has been the
greatest impact that had made to the yakuza society.
I had written an article about an assacination
of Kenji Hirota, a vice chairman of Nakano Kai, another major
yakuza syndicate, in Okinawa last summer. The hitman was driving
a motorcycle when he attacked the vice chairman who was in
a car. The assasin only fired once to put him down. There
had been a woman sitting next to Hirota, but she did not suffer
any injuries during the incident.
The procedure seen in Hirota's fall has been
the traditional way of vengeance defined by Japanese yakuzas.
The Maebashi shooting was a deviation, and this means the
whole definition of vendetta among organized crime syndicates
is changing its nature. This is another reason why the incident
is rocking the yakuzas.
Goto had been a member of Omaeda Ikka, which
is one of the most militant branches in the Inagawa Kai. This
is obvious as the group is believed to have played an important
part in the funeral home shooting. The group had been expelled
from Inagawa Kai to take the responsibility of the shooting.
It is plausible that some of the members are eager to take
action after their former boss had been badly wounded twice
and his bodyguard being gunned down.
In addition, the expulsion should have been
an act of "teuchi," meaning the Omaeda Ikka and the Inagawa
Kai had struck a deal, that they will no longer discuss about
the Tokyo shooting in the future. This means that a series
of attempt to murder Goto could be considered as to breaking
the deal. The Omaeda Ikka gave the assasin to police forces
for criminal conviction instead of the traditional retaliation
of killing him. I believe some people have been seriously
offended by the action. An attack should be returned by retaliation--a
yakuza tradition and a simple math--had been destroyed.
We must also look into the reason why the
Tokyo shooting had occurred. The root stems from the organizational
problem of Kokusui Kai, another Tokyo based yakuza group.
The shooting was rather an internal strife in the Kokusui
Kai rather than a feud between Sumiyoshi Kai and Inagawa Kai.
There have been a series of background incidents with different
intentions of each yakuza group that had led to the shooting,
which is much more complicated to explain. It seems unavoidable
that the feud to intensify.
However,
some observers, although they are minorities, possess the
view that no further incident is likely to happen. Actually,
I share their view.
A gangster turned himself into police that
he had been the hitman in the Maebashi bloodshed. An office
of the organization which he belonged to is being protected
by police since then, but it is likely that police is wasting
taxpayer's money. If Omaeda Ikka is to declare war against
its enemy, they should have done so right after Goto's first
attempted assasination at the golf course, but they did not
make any moves at the time.
The hitman is believed to have told police
that he had been terrified of being murdered. An unidentified
sources close to yakuza society told me that he feared he
would be put down by his colleagues who blame his two-time
blunder to kill Goto, rather than from retaliation by Inagawa
Kai.
If there is any possibility of feud going
underway, police must conduct proper search of the parties
involved. Any yakuza office preparing for a vendetta must
be armed with guns, and with the authorities they possess,
it is possible for the police forces to destroy yakuza groups
under such circumstances.
However, when the police has built up evidences
that there would be a feud on its way, they would just be
watching it happen. They are almost sure, never to take any
action. Because they are scared that they may be hurt during
the course of their search to yakuza headquarters. Ironically,
this is the way the nation's police is being operated. Their
priority is to protect the lives of police officers rather
than those of the citizens. An extraordinary organization,
from human rights point of view.... So if there are police
officers are on a watch of a yakuza headquarters, they are
certain that nobody would be attacking it.
What can we expect from police anyway? It
is not really the point. What dread most of the yakuzas are
the amending and reinforcement of the "Legislation relating
to Prevention of Unjust Acts by Boryoku-dan members," or the
anti yakuza law. One of the proposed amendments is that when
a vendetta takes place, the boss of the yakuza group involved
could be detained to be charged with criminal prosecution.
It is a yakuza common sense that a feud is
only possible when the boss gives his subordinates to attack
the enemy. Therefore, the law enforcement authorities could
seek criminal charges against the boss for conspiring with
the subordinates for the bloody act.
In recent civil cases, courts have ordered
yakuza bosses to compensate victims who had been involved
in yakuza feuds as they had been responsible for their employers'
action. So it is highly possible that the rules be applied
for criminal prosecution.
There should be little argument in the public
against tightening the anti yakuza law after three civilians
being shot to death by yakuzas. Old-fashioned yakuzas had
certain rules, such as never to involve non-yakuza people
in yakuza-related conflicts, and absolutely no bloodsheds
during ceremonial occasions. Nowadays, these unwritten rules
have been casually broken. In other words, yakuzas are turning
into mafias, becoming more secretive criminal organizations.
Traditional yakuzas had "shinogi,"or the way
to earn money, such as bodyguarding fee from local bars, horse
and bicycle race bookmaking, and exchanging winnings from
pachinko parlors. These sources of income had been prohibited
by the anti yakuza law. The worst part is that bodyguarding,
bookmaking and pachinko exchangers still exist, under the
protection of police affiliated organizations. Great majority
of the executives of those organizations are retired police
officers.
If you choose to go on as a yakuza in today's
Japan, you must be a part of underground organization to survive
from police prosecution. The shooting in Maebashi, I believe,
was a result of poorly managed now underground yakuza group
that have become more secretive and lost firm grip on its
members.
The National Police Agency has provided a
statistics a few days ago that a number of member and quasi-members
of yakuza organizations have increased in number 7 years in
a row. I suspect the police have released the number deliberately
so people would support police from amending the anti yakuza
law.
The conclusion is that the amendment of the
law would be nothing but to further spoil and give more authorities
to the nation's corrupted police. Nobody--not only yakuza
but also ordinary citizens--will benefit from the amendment.
(2003/2/10)
Translated by Dennou Kituneme Gumi
