Word: zengakuren
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...crowded aircraft suddenly sprang to their feet. At first some passengers thought that it was only some kind of show or trick. Then the youths pulled out daggers and short, curved samurai swords. Some of them shouted, "We are the Red Army"-an extremist splinter group of the leftist Zengakuren student movement...
...accustomed to the atmosphere of improvisation at U.S. or French demonstrations are apt to find the Japanese protest scene quite different. Clashes between helmeted students and shield-carrying riot cops seem as stylized?and puzzling?as a No play. Moreover, the rioters, often led by members of the radical Zengakuren (a student federation), are usually higher on doctrine than drugs (pot has yet to spread far in Japan). Before long, however, Japanese dissent may be taking on a Western character...
...ultraradical splinter group from the Zengakuren students' union was not about to settle for any peaceful solution. Like militants on other campuses the world over, they wanted a violent confrontation with authority...
They tear gassed the defenders and trained water cannons at students on the roof. Using power saws, sledgehammers and blowtorches, they battered and burned down the barricades while a police helicopter sprayed tear gas down on the building. Resistance ended the afternoon of the second day and the beaten Zengakuren were led off to jail. There were 631 arrests, but, amazingly, only three students and two policemen were listed as seriously injured...
...worst rioting Tokyo had seen since 1960, when the Zengakuren prevented President Eisenhower's state visit to Japan and toppled Premier Kishi. But even then, though much more unified and with far more public support than today, Zengakuren could not prevent the signing of the U.S.-Japanese Security Pact. The pact, replacing the earlier Security Treaty of 1951, was signed in 1960. It actually gives Japan a greater voice than before in any U.S. military activities on Japanese territory, and pledges both countries to take unspecified action if either one is attacked in territories under Japanese administration...