A Japanese wrestler-turned-politician hopes his vision of “sports diplomacy” can repair his country’s fraught relationship with North Korea, as he prepares to host an extraordinary sporting event in Pyongyang.
Kanji “Antonio” Inoki’s bid seems less far-fetched when put in the context of his past diplomatic victories: He helped secure the release of Japanese hostages in Iraq in 1990 after impressing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and more recently used his old bouts with Pakistani wrestlers to foster goodwill between the South Asian country and his own.
Standing at 1.9m, with a square jaw and a penchant for red scarves, Inoki is instantly recognizable on Japanese television, but is best-known abroad for taking on world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali in a zany wrestler-versus-boxer match in Tokyo in 1976.
Photo: AFP
The grappler also organized and competed in a “Sports and Cultural Festival for Peace” in Pyongyang in 1995, featuring the first publicly staged bouts between Japanese and US pro wrestlers in the reclusive country, which an ailing Ali attended a guest.
Inoki’s latest venture will bring 21 combatants from Japan, the US, France, Brazil and China to the “International Pro Wrestling Festival” at the North Korean capital’s 20,000-seat Ryugyong Chung Ju-yung Stadium on Saturday and Sunday.
They include the US’ Bob Sapp and Frenchman Jerome Le Banner, said Inoki’s office, which will cohost the event with North Korean authorities. Sideshows in the Korean combat sport of taekwondo and other martial arts will also feature.
“We have basically and always aimed to create as favorable an environment as possible” for bilateral ties, said Inoki, who has visited Pyongyang 29 times since 1974 to build connections with North Korea, the birthplace of his late wrestling mentor, known by his ring name: Rikidozan.
“Government-level talks should go into depth as soon as possible. I believe the best solution is that [Japanese] Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe visits,” Inoki said.
The event was announced last month, days after Tokyo revoked some unilateral sanctions including curbs on travel against Pyongyang, to reward its decision to relaunch a probe into the fate of Japanese kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.
After the travel ban was eased, Inoki led a group of lawmakers on a visit to the North and talked with officials on ways to solve the abduction issue and promote exchanges.
North Korea is expected to make public the result of the probe in September amid rumors yjsy Abe will travel to Pyongyang if the communist state makes a major announcement.
For Inoki, sport’s ability to transcend nationality and ideology make it especially suitable as a catalyst for greater cooperation on sensitive issues with the secretive nation.
“Sport is something that cannot be rejected, even in a closed society,” said the 71-year-old politician, who retired from wrestling in 1998 and has been elected to Japan’s upper house of parliament twice since 1989. “I think people over there keep some of their doors open through sport.”
His unique approach made headlines in 1990, when he helped secure the release of 41 Japanese hostages in Iraq during the Gulf War after meeting Hussein’s son and staging a wrestling show in Baghdad.
Inoki converted to Islam the same year, taking the name Muhammad Hussain during the hostage rescue visit as he had been reportedly advised that being Muslim would be helpful for his contact with Iraqi leaders.
“I have not yet become a full-fledged Muslim. I drink alcohol once in a while and I do not have four wives yet,” Inoki told the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in August last year.
Elsewhere, he famously fought Pakistani wrestler and national hero Akram Pehlwan in Karachi in 1976, and has since tried hard to promote bilateral relations with Pakistan, leading a team of Japanese grapplers in late 2012 to an international wrestling event in troubled Peshawar that was once again aimed at promoting peace.
Back in Tokyo, Inoki heads a non-profit organization aimed at establishing sports-based international exchanges, which opened an office in Pyongyang last year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a keen interest in sport and since assuming power in 2011 has built up a surprising and at times controversial friendship with eccentric former US basketball star Dennis Rodman.
Inoki will be hosted in Pyongyang by Kang Sok-ju, a seasoned diplomat and secretary at the ruling Workers Party of Korea seen as a trusted aide to Kim, as well as to his late father and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung, who founded the communist dynasty.
However, like Rodman, the wrestler has been accused of naivete by critics, who say that in a country ruled for more than six decades by the Kim family, the sometimes flamboyant welcome laid on for sports stars belies evidence of rampant human rights abuses and zero tolerance for political dissent.
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