Assassination of Ito

Itō arrived at the Harbin Railway Station on October 26, 1909 for a meeting with Vladimir Kokovtsov, a Russian representative in Manchuria. When he arrived and proceeded to meet his Russian colleague, An Jung-geun, a Korean nationalist and independence activist, fired six shots at him. Three of those shots hit Itō in the chest and he died shortly thereafter. (from Wiki (28-04-2012))

This assassination is very controversial in that for instance

1. Korean people praised this assassination very much and do even now as a heroic action for Korean independence.
My opinion: This is a terrorism action. An Jung-geun was a idealist with no means and no power to change the conditions while Ito was a realistic planner and executor having experiences, brain, means, power to change the conditions.

2.  When Ōkuma Shigenobu (大隈重信) (who had been a rival to Ito) heard the news of the assassination he commented that he really envied Ito by saying "Ito died so gloriously."

3. Another very complicated controversy - maybe due to some very political reasons

Ito was liberal minded but not radical nor very pro-Korea Invasion and Conquering (征韓論) while the people so called 'Liberal' or 'pro Democracy', or 'Human rightists' including Itagaki, Goto, Eto, Soejima, Okuma were pro-Korea Invasion and Conquering the conservative and powerful Okubo, Iwakura, Kido, Ito and Kuroda, were against Korea Invasion and Conquering .


sptt