Page 88 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

A-Kushner.qxd 29-10-02 3:20 PM Page 61

–
Aum Shinrikyo———61

they can become enlightened. Some commentators Australia, Sri Lanka, and the United States. Its most
characterize the cult as a type of “fundamentalist” successful expansion was to Russia in 1992, where it
Buddhism. However, Asahara has at times described attracted thousands of followers. In Japan, Aum had
himself as an incarnation of Shiva, the Hindu god ventures in dozens of industries, including noodle
responsible for both destruction and rebirth. Aum shops and low-budget computer stores. These
-
Shinrikyo also incorporates a fervent belief in the operations earned millions for the cult; one cult leader
coming of Armageddon, a term from Christian theol- estimated that its assets were worth $1.5 billion at the
ogy describing and ultimate battle between good and time of the subway attacks.
evil in which the known world is destroyed and In 1990, Asahara and several other prominent
replaced by a spiritually pure world. members ran, all unsuccessfully, for seats in Japan’s
The organization began in 1984 with a single Parliament. Despite years of negative media coverage,
Tokyo storefront offering yoga classes and religious numerous lawsuits—which the cult had fiercely con-
seminars. Claims that believers could attain miracu- tested—and public speculation about Aum’s involve-
lous psychic powers brought many curious people to ment in the Sakamoto family’s disappearance, the
the seminars, and the cult soon began to attract a crushing defeat of all Aum’s candidates was an unex-
following. In addition to the personal magnetism of pected blow to Asahara. He began to preach that it was
Shoko Asahara, the cult’s message—that only by puri- the duty of Aum members to hasten the coming of
fying themselves could believers avert the destruction Armageddon, which would destroy the sinful and ele-
of humanity—appealed to many alienated by the vate Aum’s true believers onto a higher spiritual plane.
industrialized, secular, and conformist society of In light of this new goal, he assembled top advisers
Japan. At its peak in the mid-1990s, the cult was esti- and instructed them to begin to arm the cult. The
mated to have 9,000 Japanese members and an scientific expertise of certain cultists, coupled with
unknown number of followers worldwide, with Aum’s connections to the Russian government and
approximately 1,000 hardcore adherents living at underworld, proved invaluable. By mid-1993, Aum
various cult properties and compounds. Teenagers and had constructed a plant to manufacture automatic
students made up a considerable portion of the cult’s weapons, and crude but operational chemical and bio-
membership, some of them brilliant graduates of logical weapons facilities, where it was able to pro-
Japan’s top universities, with advanced degrees in duce botulism toxin, anthrax bacteria, sarin gas, and
medicine, law, and science. hydrogen cyanide.
The cult was a very profitable enterprise, charging The cult began experimenting with its new
high fees for initiation and for relics such as snippets weapons. It sprayed botulism toxin in central Tokyo in
of Asahara’s beard and vials of his bathwater. Some 1993 during the wedding of the Crown Prince; no one
initiation rituals involved ingesting Asahara’s blood was harmed. The cult then released anthrax from an
and taking massive doses of hallucinogenic drugs. industrial sprayer on the roof of one of its facilities in
Members were encouraged to cut off all ties to a Tokyo suburb; the strain was nonvirulent, and
their families and donate their life savings to the cult. no people were injured. After its biological arsenal
Dissenters were treated harshly, sometimes sub- failed, the cult turned to chemical weapons. Asahara
jected to sleep deprivation and other torture tech- ordered sarin gas used in an assassination attempt
niques. Some runaways were kidnapped and beaten on a rival cult leader. The attempt backfired, nearly
in order to return them to the fold. In 1989, human killing one of the potential assassins. Aum then
rights lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who had been employed the gas in an attack on three judges adjudi-
suing the cult on behalf of members’ families, and cating a property dispute Aum was involved in. On the
his wife and infant son were murdered by cultists. night of June 17, 1994, cult members released the gas
(Aum member Kazuaki Okazaki was sentenced in a residential area of the suburb of Matsumoto. Due
to death by hanging after confessing to their to a shift in the wind, the judges were only injured
murders—as well as that of a potential Aum escapee— slightly; seven innocent bystanders were killed and
in October 1998.) more than 150 hospitalized following the incident.
As membership grew into the thousands, Aum Despite continual suspicion, Aum had been able to
established operations in other countries, including fend off police action through threats of costly lawsuits