Shoko Asahara: My memories of how the Tokyo subway sowed terror one day in March 1995 | Post Magazine

6 for a series of attacks that killed 27 people, including the victims of Japan's first terrorist attack, recalled memories of this clear spring day and the few months that followed .

Clock reports, leading to the identification of the corpulent, almost-blind, self-proclaimed guru. On May 16, 1995, police found him in a casket-like cell at the group's headquarters in Kamikuishiki, a hamlet at the foot of Mount Fuji. Few people forget the television cameras broadcast this morning: a few hours after the drama of the day, the countdown to find Asahara began with journalists panting: "The doors are open," then screams in the pickups.

A naughty Asahara, dressed in pink robes, was ejected from hiding by clutching more Japanese yen bundles, and was taken away in a blue pickup truck at 10:35 am. As helicopters buzzed overhead, with hundreds of reporters hunting and crowding at the level crossings overlooking the show, they remembered OJ Simpson's surrealist train a year earlier on a Los Angeles expressway. Only it was Japan, known for its law-abiding citizens and often ridiculed for inculcating an unshakeable will to comply.

Experts have opined indefinitely that Asahara and his followers were proof of the decay of a disillusioned society, pointing to the worsening of the country's financial crisis and noting that 1995 had already seen his share of tragedy: the Kobe earthquake in January that killed more than 5,000 people. The twin tragedies of the earthquake and the Tokyo gas attack were so serious that the Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote in his book Underground : "It does not matter. It is not an exaggeration to say that there has been a marked change in Japanese consciousness. "Before and after" these events. "

In the weeks leading up to the detention of Asahara, the evil operations Aum appeared as related crimes, often in the eyes of the public, to intimidate a population that had never feared catching public transport or living in the busy metropolis. Millions of people attached to their TVs, including me, have been chilled by other assassinations and assassination attempts in the city, including the murder of a police commissioner in front of his home by a police officer. man who fled on a bicycle, four shots born the long-awaited raid of Aum's headquarters on March 22), and a murder captured by the cameras of a cult lieutenant.

Everyone I knew felt that they had to understand the substance called sarin – including an American intern at my journal, The Evening News Asahi (The English Arm of Asahi Shimbun ), who, wondering what to do scrambled reports on the nerve gas of the day of the attack, phoned a nearby western pharmacy to ask for an explanation. It was the era of limited Internet access to our office, and she had not been to Japan a year earlier, when Aum had killed seven people in the city of Matsumoto and had scooped hundreds.

a chemist at The American Pharmacy – of the complex atomic arrangement of sarin – resembled what we could understand about Aum, a group with commercial interests spanning the globe and reported links with the yakuza. We learned it as a result of a televised murder on the evening of April 23, when Aum 's "Minister of Science", Hideo Murai, was stabbed while he was whacking himself. a path through a phalanx of police and journalists besieging the Tokyo office. The murderer, a thug affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group, stabbed his victim repeatedly until he collapsed in the middle of the fray.

The public massacre took place more than a month after the sarin strike on the subway. massive arrests of cult members – a nationwide sinister hunt Residents of Tokyo could not stop following as X marks indicating "captured" began to appear on the mug photos displayed in the stations. The chemical attack also allowed to seal the bins and later to install cameras to prevent retaliation.

Unfortunately, while commuters remained alert and less sleepy at work, another incident prompted them to sit down. . A few days after the rumors of a reprisal attack by Aum, who persuaded some stores to close, the commuters at Yokohama station were shot down by mysterious fumes. Although no one was seriously injured, and that we later discovered that it was the work of a gangster, fear was mounting suspicion: people who knew Aumster did not fail – the name my boss gave to the members of the sect.

We used the inappropriate nickname to clear up the pessimism fueled by endless reports covering everything from the electro-charged helmets that members wore to synchronize brainwaves with Asahara and the 50-degree Celsius baths were forced to Enter drinks made from brewed beard cuts and the guru's sperm, which sold for high prices. The fact may have been mingled with fiction, but at the time, everything seemed possible

Then came news that made terror work deeper into the psyche. On May 5, a cleaner notified authorities of two suspect bags placed near a vent in a man's toilet at Shinjuku Station, the busiest in the world in terms of the number of passengers. The containers contained substances capable of producing gaseous cyanide.

The three stations that I used frequently were dangerous areas – Ikebukuro, where one of the five teams Aum boarded the train on the day of the sarin attack; Higashi-Ginza, one of the many stops where poisoned passengers were convulsed and temporarily blinded while waiting for ambulances; and Shinjuku, where thousands could have been killed, according to reports – was reason enough to find alternative routes to the house. So, instead of heading to the nearest station every day, I often walked 15 minutes longer to Ginza to board the Marunouchi Line (unfortunately, one of the three targets of the 39; attack). It meant using two of the three arteries that I needed to get home, which, in my mind at least, was safer than following the routine

Even though the media and Aum have involuntarily worked together to stir up hysteria, they collaborated. Fumihiro Joyu, Aum 's "Minister of Information", who would replace Asahara as spokesman for the group and later lead a dissident group. Random images engraved in the memory of this tumultuous period include images of police doing inspections with canaries in cages to protect (warn against harmful gases), a young Asahara levitating (during the first days of the group he still used his birth name, Chizuo Matsumoto and attracting yoga enthusiasts) and the handsome Joyu, who became an idol of adolescence because of his dashing looks and charisma.

The reports replayed ad nauseam on television also reminded viewers of the misguided aspirations of Asahara in 1990 to win seats. Diet for him and his cohorts. Instead of the usual performances of political hopes or strident messages emanating from right-handers, Aum tried to win votes by proselytizing into bizarre gatherings: some members wore oversized papier-mache masks from Asahara while intoning, "Shoko, Shoko"; others donned Ganesh elephant heads (the group's teachings were based on Buddhist and Hindu principles). I remember how people looked away, as they were embarrassed to admit that they were part of Japanese society.

When I learned that Asahara had been executed 23 years after committing one of the most serious crimes in Japan, relief was the initial sensation. But then I remembered the brevity of the reprieve after his capture. As people seized special documents published to announce his arrest, another act of violence was under way. Hours after Asahara 's detention, a bomb parcel exploded in the offices of Tokyo governor Yukio Aoshima. The blast blew up the hand of the person who was opening the package

That is why, in September 2006, Asahara had lost a special appeal against his death sentence (having been found to be healthy). spirit and therefore responsible for his actions). the police raided 25 sites linked to Aum, who had changed his name to Aleph.

Now, I'm afraid to have been hanged, with six disciples, without ever explaining his motives, Asahara will live bizarrely as a kind of martyr.