Yamazaki, Liberal Democratic Party and Tabloids

In Shakyamuni's time. Devadatta flattered King Ajase and using the power of the king, Devadatta tried to kill Shakyamuni to take over the Buddhist order. Shkyamuni's disciples united together and fought back. Finally, Devadatta lost his followers, and subsequently, King Ajase repent his sins and became the follower of Shakyamuni. Thus, Devadatta lost everything and died in a hellish condition.

Yamazaki, who identified himself as "Devadatta of the Heisei Era," flattered the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power for the past 5 decades, and attacking Soka Gakkai. We know that he is on the way to hell, but he would take everyone, whom he has associated with, to hell, too.

1. In an Attempt to Escape from his Arrest

1980 Yamazaki's Seahorse Co. bankrupted in April with a debts of 4,500,000,000Yen. Then, Yamazaki blackmailed Soka Gakkai again for 500,000,000 Yen. This time, Soka Gakkai accused Yamazaki for his crime (6/5) and fired him from the attorney position.

Yamazaki started a smoke-screen campaign. He attempted to create an atmosphere that Soka is an illegal organization. He hoped that such atmosphere would make Yamazaki himself "A man of Justice" and consequently, his crime might be reduced. Yamazaki hid himself and wrote 14 articles anonymously attacking Soka Gakkai in tabloids. Then, using his real name wrote another 19 articles in tabloids. All articles were skillfully fabricated to make him a man of justice. Through these articles, he attempted to escape the arrest.

However, this did not work. in 1981 Yamazaki was arrested (1/24).

1981-85 75 hearings were held on Yamazaki's crime.

2. In an attempt to avoid conviction

During the court case, Yamazki's campagin escalated. In 1983 Yamazaki started a campaign to use the national Diet to attack Soka Gakkai. He made a tie with Toshio Ohashi, who was a Komeito party congressman but had started attacking Soka Gakkai (because he was criticized by Soka Gakkai for his womanizing activity). Yamazaki drafted a 17 page "Request for the Investigation on Soka Gakkai by the Diet" for Ohashi. On (9/2), Ohashi submitted this to the Chairman of the Lower house. The content said that the activities of Soka Gakkai are in violation of the separation of the State and the Church, and therefore, it should be investigated by the Diet. It even suggested to disband Soka Gakkai using the Article 81 of the "Religious Corporstion Law." Yamazaki's intension was that if Soka Gakkai was an illegal organization, his crime might be lessened. However, it was flatly rejected, because it contained stories which were no more than tabloid gossips.

3. After the Release from Jail

Although Yamazaki's attempt failed in the 1980's, his "Request for the Investigation" became a Bible for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), because it described how to maliciously apply the Religious Corporation Law for investigating and controlling a religious organization.

Indeed, in 1995, LDP employed Yamazaki's idea to attack Soka Gakkai by revising the Religious Corporation Law for their convenience to monitor, to investigate and ultimately, to control Soka Gakkai. This happened during LDP's Soka Gakkai bashing campaign in 1994-1995 which was actually orchestrated and led fully by Yamazaki. For example, the establishment of "April Alliance" (Shigatsukai) is Yamazaki's idea. Yamazaki's plan to use LDP for attacking Soka Gakkai was written in his 1994 letters to 67th High Priest Nikken. After released from jail in 1994, he was living in the Shoshinkai temple from where he wrote at least 5 letters to Nikken (which were all scooped by Chugai Nippou, a non-sectarian religious newspaper in Kyoto).Yamazaki wrote:

"On September 27 (1994), I had a conference with a leader of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on the future anti-Soka Gakkai campaign. We are planning to attack Soka Gakkai on the budget committee meeting around November 11-13 during the time when the session would be Televised nationwide. "

"This is the declaration of war against Soka Gakkai, and we will continue this until we could summon Daisaku Ikeda to the Diet as a witness. In reference to tabloid journals, everyone in the Bungei Shunju company, including the president and editor-in-chief, hates Soka Gakkai. This would continue for another 10 years. Kodansha Pub. Co. is rather complicated, because it has published several Gakkai-related books. The hatred of Shukan Shincho Pub. Co. on Soka Gakkai is second to none, but it is rather difficult in dealing with the company. As to Kobunsha Pub. Co. the editor publishes anything as long as we give him a bribe. "

Actually, what Yamazaki wrote in his letter took place in the Diet: Rev. Ohashi drank drove, crossed the centerline, hit a truck and died (7/21/94). The driver of the truck was happened to be a Gakkai leader. 40 days later, Yamazaki wrote a fabricated story in tabloids that a Soka Gakkai leader killed Rev. Ohashi by car (9/1/94). Then, this fabricated article of the tabloid was read by an LDP Diet member, Jiro Kawasaki, during the session of budget committee while it was televised nationwide (10/11/94).

A Higashimurayama City council women, Akiyo Asagi, committed suicide (9/1/95) by jumping from the six floor landing. She had earlier investigated for pick-pocketing a T- shirt from a boutique store (6/19/95), and court appearing was scheduled on 9/5/95. It happened that she was an anti-Soka Gakkai activist. A total of 52 articles were published in several tabloids in a short time which all speculated that Asagi was killed by Soka Gakkai. These articles were read in the Diet on 11/7/95 at the council meeting for "Religious Cooperation Law" by two LDP delegates, Yoshiyuki Hozumi and Akihiko Kumashiro.

Earlier 1995,. a member of Aum Shinrikyo spraid salin gas in Tokyo metro train, killing 12 and injuring 5000. Using this incident, LDP proposed a revision of Religiou Cooperation Law to control religious organization under governmental control. Mr. Nobuyoshi Shimamura became the Minister of Education. His role was to pass this revision. In the September 30 issue of Sukan Gendai, Shimamura confessed that he became the Minister of Education for this purpose.Yamazaki was frequently invited as a speaker in LDP's study meetings.LDP used Aum's poison gas incident to create an atmosphere that religious organization is dangerous.

LDP also used Asagi's case to create an image that Soka Gakkai is a terrorist organization like Aum Shinrikyo. After thorough investigation, Higashi Murayama Police Station officially announced on 12/22/95 that the death of Asagi was a suicide. None of tabloids apologized their mistaken articles.

During the year of 1995, a total of 526 Soka Gakkai-bashing articles were published in several tabloids. Actually, only several writers, such as Yamazaki, Naito, Okkotsu and Dan wrote all of these fabricated stories!! Using these article as a smoke screen, LDP succeeded to revise the Religious Cooperation Law without much discussion (12/8/95). Yamazaki played the central role in conducting this tabloid Gakkai-bashing campaign.

4. More Evidence to show Yamazaki-LDP Link

Around 1994-1995, "The Victims of Soka Gakkai Association" was formed, and started promoting a vigorous anti-Gakkai campaign. Chugai Nippou soon found out that this Victims Association used the same building and the same FAX number as those of "Association for Studying Democracy" which Shizuka Kamei (a cabinet member; an LDP's right-sing extremist whose goal is to restore Shintoism as the backbone of Japan). Officially, Kunio Naito (Once a reporter of Mainichi Newspaper, but resigned; he has been writing numerous Gakkai bashing articles for money) was in charge of the Association to Study Democracy, but Yamazaki was handling everything.

Between 10/1995 - 10/96, Yamazaki helped election campaign of LDP by conducting Gakkai bashing campaign using the Association for Studying Democracy. The Association published and distributed 100,000,000 Gakkai-bashing pamphlets during the campaign. LDP won and Yamazaki received a half-billion Yen from LDP. But Naito did not receive any. Naito got mad, and is now accusing Yamazaki. This association was not registered as the political organization, and thus, it is illegal to do election campaign. Naito was accused and investigated for the possible violation of the campaign law. Everyone, who became close to Yamazaki, always got into a trouble!

5. Yamazaki's Current Campaign (Nobuhira Case)

Yamazaki also wrote fabricated stories in tabloid (2/22/96) that Mrs. Nobuko Nobuhira was raped 3 times by Ikeda during the past 30 years. Her husband, Joko Nobuhira, took a legal action (civil case) against Ikeda. Court hearing is going on, and the fallacy of Yamazaki's story have been demonstrated by many witnesses and evidence. But Yamazaki has kept writing in tabloids the same fabricated story over and over again to defame Ikeda and Soka Gakkai. Since Japanese judiciary system has no juror-system, the judge has to make the sentencing. Sometimes, the court case takes 5 to 10 years, during which time Yamazaki could keep attacking Soka Gakkai using tabloid journals, and he could keep receiving money from LDP and tabloid publishers!

References:

(a) Books (in Japanese) (i) Yoshinori Kitabayashi (Ex-Staff of Yamazaki's Plot Team): Masatomo Yamazaki - Imposter and Blackmailer (in Japanese), Hamano Publishing Co, 6-4 Ichibancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102 (ii) Yoshikazu Abe: "Inbo" (A Plot); Masatomo Yamazaki - A Designer of the Revision of Religious Corporation Law. Chugai Nippou Co., 9 Higashi San-no-cho, Higashi-9-jo, Minami-ku, Kyoto 601 (1997) (iii) Toshiaki Sakura: "Tarashi-Ya" (A Cheater and Cajoler): Masatomo Yamazaki - A Designer of the Nobuhira's Fake Rape Incident
Publisher: Daisan Bunmei Pub. Co. Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan (1998), (iv) Toshiaki Sakura: Fabrications and Distortions in Soka Gakkai Bashing Articles in Weekly Tabloids: This Is a Crime! (in Japanese) Ebara Office, 3-7-28 Nishi Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 112

(b) Internet: Soka Gakkai-related homepages can be linked from http://members.aol.com/watchbuddh/sgi-link.htm

Nichiren Buddhism Study Group
http://members.aol.com/nichiheret/masatomo_yamazaki/index.htm
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