JAPAN: An End to Play-Acting

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Clashes between Japanese students and police have long had the ritual quality of a classic No play. First would come the students, helmeted and frequently masked with towels. From under a forest of red banners, they would let go a barrage of stones for a salutation. The police, brandishing nightsticks, would retaliate with exploding tear-gas charges. Even in the most impassioned confrontations, however, the actors on both sides rigidly adhered to an unwritten law: no killing.

Last week, in the bloodiest of a long series of skirmishes over the building of Tokyo's new jetport at Narita, some 40 miles southeast of the capital, that code was violently broken. Nearly 5,000 riot police were on hand to help airport officials expropriate three parcels of farm land that were holding up the last stage of construction. The farmers were grimly determined to resist seizure of their ancestral tracts. So too were some 3,000 student activists.

All went pretty much according to script until a screaming band of students charged 80 policemen manning a checkpoint on a dirt road about a mile from the center of the action. Crying "korose!" (kill!), the students threw scores of Molotov cocktails, then worked over the cops with steel pipes, bamboo staves and nail-studded sticks. Some of the riot police, who do not carry guns in Japan, fled. But 30 were left slumped and bleeding on the ground. Three soon died, one with a ruptured heart and two with shattered skulls.

The rest of the riot police tore into the students. At one point they used a giant crane to pull down a 35 ft. "Fighting Spirit Tower" that had been erected by the rebels. The tower toppled in a burst of flames, carrying a handful of students and a cache of fire bombs with it. At least two of the demonstrators were hideously burned. In the face of the riot squads, the farmers withdrew; next day their land was leveled by bulldozers. The final toll: three policemen dead, 159 police and students injured. The outlook for future demonstrations, including one set for next week against Emperor Hirohito's trip to Europe: no more play-acting by the police.