Chukaku-ha

Chukaku-ha (aka Middle Core Faction; Nucleus Faction) is a radical Japanese leftist terrorist group best known for its 30-year struggle against the Narita Airport project. The group is believed to have about 3,500 members, of which several hundred form the active terrorist core.

Chukaku-ha was born out of the leftist student movement of 1960s Japan. From the start, Japan's student radicals focused their opposition on two issues: the perceived imperialism of Japan's government, and the close relations between Japan and the United States, particularly the continued U.S. military presence in Japan. The tendency of hard-line elements within Japan's radical groups to split off and form separate groups because of ideological disputes led to increasing radicalism and created bitter rivalries. The Chukaku-ha was typical. It [Page 135]began in the mid-1960s as the armed wing of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League and spawned two splinter groups of its own during that turbulent decade.

Chukaku-ha participated in many demonstrations in support of various causes during the 1960s, displaying a tendency toward violence as early as 1969, when members are alleged to have killed a member of a rival student group. The organization did not find a perfect cause until the early 1970s, however, when members began to participate in demonstrations against the Narita Airport project. In 1966 the Japanese government announced the airport project without consulting or even informing the 200 farming families who would be displaced. The farmers’ plight attracted substantial public sympathy and led to widespread protests, with Chukaku-ha eventually moving into the forefront of the anti-Narita struggle. In 1973 the group helped erect 50-foot steel towers next to the airport runway, thus preventing planes from taking off.

In May 1977, riots broke out at an anti-Narita protest; four people died—three policemen and a bystander. In March 1978, a week before the airport's long-delayed opening, 14 Chukaku-ha members broke into the airport's control tower. Two of them reached the control room, where they took a sledgehammer to the equipment, delaying the opening for several months. Protests have continued to cripple the facility, and 36 years later, the airport is much smaller than originally planned.

During the mid-1980s, Chukaku-ha focused its attention on opposing the proposed privatization of Japan's national rail company. During 1985 and 1986, it carried out dozens of punishment beatings of several rail executives and of union members who supported privatization; several died from their injuries. Chukaku-ha is thought to be responsible for more than 80 killings since its founding. On November 29, 1985, Chukaku-ha sabotaged two key information transmitters that controlled train scheduling and ticket ordering; millions of commuters were affected. Also in 1985, the group began experimenting with homemade rockets, launching the short-range and ineffective missiles at a U.S. Army base on the island of Okinawa. In 1986 the group made a similar attack during the G7 trade summit; at that time, experts estimated that the missiles had a two-mile range. In the G7 incident and several similar attacks, however, the aim appears to have been property damage rather than casualties.

Since 1986, Chukaku-ha has confined its activities mostly to protests, propaganda, and threats, while directing its violence toward members of rival groups. Chukaku-ha is still an active political force within Japan, however, and concerns about the group's continued terrorist capabilities led to a police crackdown and increased security during the March 2000 G8 summit.

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