Chizuo Osava, popularly known as Mário Japa, was born on February 26, 1945 in Arceburgo, in the interior of Minas Gerais. He was a member of the Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária (VPR), an organization for which he was a militant from 1968 until February 27, 1970. In 1969, under the command of the organization, he went to Algeria to take a guerrilla course. In 1970, back in São Paulo, he had a car accident and when he was rescued, documents and weapons were found inside his car, which led to his arrest. After being imprisoned at Deops/SP and DOI-Codi/SP, he was released on March 14 of the same year in exchange for the freedom of Japanese consul Nobuo Okuchi, kidnapped by the VPR in São Paulo. He was banned from the country and only returned after the Amnesty Law was passed in 1979, after exile in Latin American, European and African countries.
