Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

CHUKAKU-HA • 107The C-PDL operated a 220-acre compound beside the Mark TwainNational Forest, near Licking, Missouri; a 55-acre paramilitary trainingfacility near Flora, Illinois; and a “survival base” near Smithville,West Virginia. The group hosted an annual Freedom Festival in Florain which survivalist and Identity groups conducted weapons workshopsand held Identity doctrine speeches and seminars. In recentyears the group has ceased to be active.CHUKAKU-HA. Also known as the Japan Revolutionary CommunistLeague, Chukaku-Ha (“central core” or “nucleus faction”) was a Japaneserevolutionary Marxist group that originated from a 1957 split inthe Japanese Communist Party and that has sought to overturn Japan’sconstitutional system and monarchy. Chukaku-Ha was the largestfaction out of the 23 factions that made up the Japanese New Leftmovement as well as the largest militant domestic opposition group inJapan. The group’s anti-imperialist position was expressed in frequentprotests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, while its rejection ofthe Japanese corporate state was concretely expressed in its frequentattacks on the construction of the New Tokyo (Narita) InternationalAirport and against the subway and railroad mass-transit systems.Even though Chukaku-Ha could be considered typically leftistbecause of its membership in the Japanese New Left and its statedobjectives and ideals, this group should also be considered anarchisticinsofar as its program seemed more intent on destroying the existingJapanese corporate state than on building an alternative socialiststate. Chukaku-Ha was not known to have any foreign state sponsorship.Almost all of its activities have taken place within Japan, andits base membership of 3,500 members supported 200 or so full-timeactivists. Among the full-time activists were members of the KansaiRevolutionary Army, the group’s covert active measures group thatactually carried out most of the group’s terrorism.The group relied on the use of homemade but sometimes surprisinglysophisticated incendiary bombs, flamethrowers, mortars,and rockets. Most of its targets have been property, whether theheadquarters of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, the nationalrailroad system, U.S. Armed Forces facilities, the Imperial Palacegrounds, or government offices. Of 41 major incidents from 1984 to1991, about 19 involved arson using incendiary bombs and devicesand 10 involved the use of crude mortars and rocketlike devices;