The same bullet that killed Abepodria ended up wounding the Moon sect, for which the former Japanese prime minister watched over so much in his life, as his father and grandfather had before. Under popular pressure, Tokyo has been investigating possible irregularities in its accounts since November – while it is being investigated for political connections – and is even threatening its dissolution.
The deplorable massacre had the virtue of putting the spotlight on the Unification Church (the formal name). The killer, a 41-year-old man, accused the cult of having ruined his family, as he robbed his widowed mother of the equivalent of 700,000 euros in “donations”, even losing his home and the events precipitated his brother’s suicide.
Abe’s maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, a war criminal in Manchuria and later rehabilitated as prime minister, facilitated the installation in the country of the staunchly anti-communist sect, founded by the Korean messiah Sun Myung Moon, better known as Reverend Moon.
According to papers declassified by Washington, Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and Moon’s church are said to have in common received abundant funds to turn South Korea and Japan into bastions in Asia during the Cold War.
In fact, for seventy years, the Japanese have been born, live and die with the Liberal Democratic Party at the helm of the State, with just two brief interruptions. Although the condemnation of the murder was unanimous, many citizens were against the expensive State funeral that, two months later – and with the presence of the Indian Narendra Modi or the American Kamala Harris – he was toasted by the co-religionist Fumio Kishida, who at the time already held the leadership of the government.
Soon after, former US President Donald Trump and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo sent messages of flattery to Reverend Moon in Seoul on the tenth anniversary of his death.
However, in Japan, each new revelation increased popular outrage and called into question the continuation of Kishida’s right-wing government. An internal investigation by his Liberal Democratic Party revealed that 179 of its 379 MPs acknowledged “contacts” with the Moon sect. Among these, there would be the president of the Lower House and a brother of Abe, reinstated after losing the Defense portfolio. Also a long dozen of deputies from the center-left and as many from the center-right.
The dismantling of the Moon Sect, considering the strength of the Godfathers, has little appearance of becoming a reality. In any case, it would not go beyond Japan, and even so, a name change might be enough for it to continue operating. In addition, his collective weddings of hundreds of followers will continue to whiten his image.
For his part, the murderer Tetsuya Yamagami, in psychiatric care, will not be tried before next year. His home-made pistol ended Abe Shinzo’s life during a rally with just one bullet. The second.
The paradox is that two of the dead Reverend Moon’s 16 children have a more genuine relationship with guns. One as a gun manufacturer in the US and the other as the guru of a new church in the United States whose pastors carry a Bible in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
