November 07, 1997
By Craig Green & Jeff Farr
Los Angeles
Operation C was in some ways a misnomer. It wasn’t just about cutting the SGI leadership and organization off from the head temple — its true intention was to get Gakkai members into the temple organization; to add rather than cut. But what a miscalculation it was. Instead of caving into demands and threats from the temple, members took Operation C as an affront and stayed with the SGI.
This left Nikken no choice but to continue the operation indefinitely, to take whatever further steps against the organization he could. Remember, the final stage of his plan was to dissolve the SGI — so Operation C, in Nikken’s mind, will continue until that aim is reached. Nikken has made five major efforts toward this: the priesthood’s order that the SGI disband, November 1991; the priesthood’s excommunication of the SGI, also November 1991; the priesthood’s expulsion of the SGI president, July 1992; the priesthood’s request to the Ministry of Education that the government dissolve the Gakkai, November 1996; and of course the upcoming re-excommunication of all Gakkai members (Nov. 30 in Japan/Dec. 30 in the United States).
This is another clear difference between the temple and the SGI: Every step of the way it has been the priests who have sought separation and made it happen. It has been the priests who have tried various means to dissolve the SGI for seven years, not the other way around. With each action, the truly authoritarian, even desperate, nature of the priesthood has become clearer and clearer.
No. 9 in a series