So far in 2000 arrests for serious crimes have dropped 20
So far in 2000, arrests for serious crimes have dropped 20.1 per cent from the same period last year.The presiding judge in a recent trial of five former senior officers of the Kanagawa prefectural police force, who were charged with covering up an inter-office drug-abuse scandal, summed up the general feeling. Corruption in police ranks has “seriously damaged public confidence in the integrity of the police force and threatened the nation’s legal foundation”.This is just one of a string of scandals concerning the Kanagawa force, whose disgrace has demoralised police throughout the country Scandals concerning other forces surface regularly. Add to that a spate of gruesome murders and high-profile incidents of underworld violence, and it is little wonder the public is feeling jittery about crime. Last Monday, a gun and knife battle that broke out mid-afternoon in Tokyo’s Kojimachi business district between members of an ultra-rightist group and Yakuza gangsters confirmed worst fears. Both sides had links with the Sumiyoshi crime syndicate, police said. Of 413 guns seized between January and June, 242 belonged to Yakuza members. While most countries would kill for statistics like that, in Japan, alarm bells are ringing.The disturbing trends don’t stop there.
Police sources say that since the enacting of the 1992 Antigang Law, organised crime groups have found it harder to rely on traditional moneymaking schemes: gambling, prostitution, protection rackets. As a result, mobsters have been taking over rightist political organisations as fronts for illegal activities. At the same time, rank-and-file gangsters are said to be turning to petty crime to pay off bosses.But the real worry is juvenile crime. So far this year, minors committed 53 murders – almost twice the number in the same period last year. Muggings by youth gangs are also up, and violence in schools has reached record levels, with cases of extreme bullying and extortion of classmates making headlines almost weekly.The sheer brutality of some of the crimes has ignited debate about Japan’s rigid education system and the leniency of the country’s juvenile laws.The soul-searching began in 1997, when a 14-year-old boy murdered two primary-school pupils. He cut off the head of one of his victims and placed it by the front gate of his school.In September last year, a group of teenagers allegedly abducted one of their peers, confining and torturing him for three months before finally strangling him. Despite persistent pleas from the youth’s parents, local police refused to investigate his disappearance, sparking public outcry.
In May this year, a 17-year-old boy allegedly hijacked a bus and stabbed a 68-year-old passenger to death. Also in May, another 17-year-old boy allegedly murdered a 65-year-old woman in her home with a knife. “I killed because I was bored,” he told investigators.According to psychiatrist Satoru Saito, such cases reflect a fundamental breakdown of family and social values.”Japan is only now starting to face up to the dark side of the family,” he said.Still, not everyone is getting worked up about Japan’s unprecedented crime wave.”I can still walk around Kabukicho at night without worrying about someone pulling a knife on me,” said Yoko Sakai, 32, a Tokyo office worker. Kabukicho is the capital’s notorious red-light district, which Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara described as so dangerous “even the Yakuza don’t dare go in”.
But Sakai says: “Compared to other countries, Japan still feels completely safe.”. Berhommesh Gebrie suddenly and quietly collapses to her knees as her frail body tries to be sick But there is nothing in her stomach. Her father, Gebrie Gedda, stoops down, gently taking hold of his 12-year-old daughter’s shoulders as her body silently convulses. Berhommesh Gebrie suddenly and quietly collapses to her knees as her frail body tries to be sick But there is nothing in her stomach. Her father, Gebrie Gedda, stoops down, gently taking hold of his 12-year-old daughter’s shoulders as her body silently convulses.
Although empty, her stomach is distended and her skin is gradually bleaching as malnutrition takes hold. Two days later, Berhommesh’s thin legs are no longer able to support her own declining body weight. Like many children and adults in the village of Ordie, 235km south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Berhommesh has not eaten for days.
Like thousands of people across the south of the country, she is starving to death in a “green famine” brought on by three consecutive years of crop failure.Villagers are burying people every week in Ordie, and elsewhere in the southern district of Hadiya, where to date some 5,000 people have died. It is a hidden crisis in part of the country unaffected by the recent war with Eritrea and where little international aid has arrived in response to Ethiopia’s third consecutive year of drought.After the failure of the early belg rains in March, bursts of rain in April left the countryside looking luscious and green Some maize even sprang up.But there is nothing to eat The maize, if it survives, will not mature for months. Ominously, even the drought-resistant plant Enset, or false banana, upon which millions of villagers rely in difficult years, has given up the ghost. The 10 per cent of animals in Ordie that survived the drought are now in better condition than the people. At least they can eat grass.”My mother and two of my children have died of hunger,” said Gebrie Gedda, who is 42 “I sold our cattle and everything we had to buy food. “The subtlety of “green famine” is one reason why aid is taking so long getting through to southern villagers, says Aydiko Ayele, deputy general secretary of the 3.5 million-strong Kale Heywet Church, whose relief and development department is currently targeting 80,000 of Hadiya’s worst-affected citizens.”Green famine confuses outsiders. People visit and ask ‘Where is the drought? It is very green, we can see crops.