Fusako Shigenobu

Fusako Shigenobu 重信房子
Kōzō Okamoto (left) and Fusako Shigenobu, leader of the Japanese Red Army at a press conference
Born	(1945-09-28) September 28, 1945 (age 71) Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Political party	Japanese Red Army

Fusako Shigenobu (重信 房子, Shigenobu Fusako^?, born September 28, 1945) is a Japanese founder and former leader of the now disbanded Japanese Red Army (JRA).

Shigenobu was born on September 28, 1945 in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo. Her father was a teacher at a terakoya or temple school (寺子屋 terakoya) open for poor village children at temples in the south Japanese Kyushu region after World War I. He later became a major in the Imperial Japanese Army dispatched to Manchuria, which was under Japanese control before and during World War II.

After high school, she went to work for the Kikkoman corporation, and began to take college courses at night at Meiji University.

Shigenobu attended Meiji University receiving a BA in Political Economy and in History. She joined the student movement that was protesting the increase of tuition fees, and this led her to activism in the leftist student movement of the 1960s. She rose up the ranks of the movement to become one of its top leaders.

In February 1971, she and Tsuyoshi Okudaira went to the Middle East to make international contacts for the Japanese Red Army Faction. Upon arrival, she soon split with the Red Army Faction in Japan due to both geographical and ideological distance, as well as a personal conflict with the new leader, Tsuneo Mori. The Red Army went on to link up with the Maoist Revolutionary Left Wing of the Japanese Communist Party to form the United Red Army. Upon hearing about the internal purge the United Red Army carried out in the winter of 1971-1972, Shigenobu recalls her shock and sorrow. She and Okudaira wrote My Love, My Revolution (わが愛わが革命) as a response.