Beheiren

Beheiren at a demonstration in Kyoto, 1971

Beheiren (ベ平連; short for Betonamu ni Heiwa o! Shimin Rengo (ベトナムに平和を！市民連合), lit. "The Citizen's League for Peace in Vietnam") was an antiwar Japanese "New Left" activist group that existed from 1965 to 1974 which protested Japanese assistance to the United States during the Vietnam War.

Beheiren claims to have helped 20 U.S. soldiers to desert, in some cases providing them with false passports and other paperwork and helping them escape to Sweden via the Soviet Union.[1] They also used shareholder activism techniques — buying single shares of Mitsubishi stock so that they could address shareholders meetings about the company's support for the American war effort.[2] The group also assisted American soldiers who were publishing and distributing underground papers and pamphlets in Japan. They helped the Intrepid Four desert and seek asylum in Sweden in 1967[3] and later helped Terry Whitmore desert in 1968.[4]

Members included Makoto Oda (official spokesperson),[5] Yuichi Yoshikawa (Secretary-General), Michitoshi Takabatake, Osamu Kuno, Amon Miyamoto, Ichiyo Muto, Shinobu Yoshioka, Takeshi Kaiko, Yoshiyuki Tsurumi and Shunsuke Tsurumi.

  1. ^ Dean, Kevin Robert. "What Japanese Anti-Vietnam War activists are up to". mailman.lbo-talk.org. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  2. ^ "Asian Studies Conference Japan ASCJ 2004". www.meijigakuin.ac.jp. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  3. ^ Takata, Kei (2017). "Escaping through the networks of trust: The US deserter support movement in the Japanese Global Sixties". The Sixties. 10 (2): 165–181. doi:10.1080/17541328.2017.1390650. S2CID 148969373.
  4. ^ Whitmore, Terry (1971). Memphis-Nam-Sweden. Doubleday & Company, Inc. p. 130.
  5. ^ Hirano, Keiji (2015-05-19). "Anti-Vietnam War 'Beheiren' activism remembered 50 years on". The Japan Times Online. ISSN 0447-5763. Retrieved 2018-08-24.