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Japanese government blames hostages for causing trouble
SF Gate ^ | Thursday, April 22, 2004 | Edward M. Gomez

Posted on 04/22/2004 11:43:14 AM PDT by van_erwin

Their lives were at risk in a war zone, but for the five Japanese who just headed home after being captured and held hostage by insurgents in Iraq, their return was anything but jubilant.

Instead, both the three Japanese nationals who were captured in early April -- humanitarian-aid worker Nahoko Takato, 34; peace activist Noriaki Imai, 18; photojournalist Soichiro Koriyama, 32 -- and two others who were seized in a later action (journalist Junpei Yasuda, 30, and nongovernmental-organization (NG0) worker Nobutaka Watanabe, 36), came back to Japan to face criticism from the country's media and from the government. The Japanese establishment's damning message: that the hostage takings were the fault of the victims for being careless and for daring to travel to Iraq despite Japanese government warnings against doing so. (Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun)

En route to Japan, after being released, Takato and Koriyama had told reporters that they would like to return to the war-ravaged country to continue their work. "How can they dare to say such things after [we] have worked [round the clock,] without sleeping or eating[,] to free them?" Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi fumed. "They need to wake up!" Japan's minister of industry and international trade snorted, "Let them go where they want to, but if something happens to them, it'll be their fault." (Le Monde)

Strongly suggesting that the released hostages and their families pay for the medical care and assistance they received after being freed, Japan's minister for disaster prevention, Kiichi Inoue, said, "The families should apologize for the problems they've caused and for having called for the pullout of our [Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF)] troops [from Iraq]." (Le Monde)

Inoue's remarks alluded to the political context in which the hostage-taking episodes had played out -- and, for Koizumi, to the political value it could all have back home. "Japan, one of Washington's closest allies, has sent some 550 ground troops to the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on a noncombat mission to help rebuild Iraq. It is the riskiest deployment of Japanese troops since the end of World War II, and critics have said it violates the nation's [postwar, U.S.-imposed] pacifist constitution." (Reuters/New Zealand Herald)

Indeed, the seizures of Japanese hostages "made clear the depth of hostility that some Iraqis feel toward the Self-Defense Force's presence." (Asahi Shimbun)

Still, echoing George Bush's "stay the course" mantra, Koizumi insisted that "[t]he SDF is doing its best [in Iraq] on behalf of the Japanese people" and that "Japan will fulfill its responsibilities." He repeated "the government's stand that the troops will not be withdrawn." (Asahi Shimbun)

That tough talk sounds encouraging to Japanese voters who feel the time has come for a democratic, economically powerful Japan to exert itself more assertively in defense-related affairs. In Iraq, however, Abdel Salem al-Kubaissi of the Islamic Clerics Association, "apparently feel[ing] slighted for not being credited by Japan for playing a key role in the release of five Japanese hostages," criticized Koizumi's government. He suggested it may have "used the hostage crises as an excuse to justify the continued deployment of Self-Defense Forces troops [in] Iraq." Al-Kubaissi seemed to believe that "Japan probably thought it would have [been] better if the hostages had remained in captivity, or even [if they had] been killed." (Kyodo/The Japan Times)

Sounding contrite about her involvement in the first of the two hostage-taking incidents, Nahoko Takato issued a message stating, "I deeply apologize for causing so much trouble to the people of Japan and the world, and I want to express my gratitude for the people who made efforts for our release." (The Japan Times)

Later, en route back to Japan, fellow freed hostage Junpei Yasuda also apologized. "Many people were concerned about us, so I'm sorry for causing trouble," he said. At the same time, a third hostage, Nobutaka Watanabe, "admitted he was careless when coming to Iraq without sufficient plans." (Mainichi Shimbun) Later, though, reports surfaced indicating that Watanabe had at first been more defiant. "'I feel sorry for causing everybody to be concerned. But I do not think my actions were wrong. I don't want to apologize for what I did,' [he had] said in a phone call ... from Baghdad to the Tokyo office of Trans-Pacific GI/SDF Rights Hotline." (The Japan Times)

Watanabe had been sending reports about Japanese troops' activities back to Trans-Pacific's offices in Japan, and they were posted on its Web site. Trans-Pacific, an NGO, is made up of "former SDF members and others opposed to any overseas dispatch of SDF personnel." (Asahi Shimbun)

For all the criticism the freed hostages received, Japan should have been proud, Le Monde opined, of their "youth motivated by humanitarian values, of which [their] candor and temerity cannot but raise the not always flattering image of their country ... ." For all the inconvenience their capture and release entailed, the French daily noted, ironically it was U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who offered "a word of encouragement" about the whole affair. Le Monde quoted Powell, who told a TV interviewer, "If no one wants to take a risk, nobody will ever make any progress."

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 04/22/2004 11:43:15 AM PDT by van_erwin
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To: van_erwin
yoku dekimashita!
2 posted on 04/22/2004 11:48:47 AM PDT by kallisti (you can't look like a sad, hollow tree.)
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To: van_erwin
We taught them Democracy well. I we could rid our Country of the Commie Lib's, disquised as a democratic party, we would do the same to peace-nics aiding the enemy.
3 posted on 04/22/2004 11:50:09 AM PDT by Uncle George
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To: van_erwin
The piece of activist........yes, doom on her and her kind. The legitimate contractors..... Charge their parent company for security needs and rescue but rescue .

Just my opinion of course........Stay safe !

4 posted on 04/22/2004 11:52:37 AM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: kallisti; van_erwin
yoku dekimashita!

Yeah, what he said.

5 posted on 04/22/2004 11:53:16 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
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To: Modernman
The PM basically said he was in no rush to secure these idiots' release.
6 posted on 04/22/2004 11:54:22 AM PDT by BroncosFan ("Friends help friends move. Real friends help you move bodies.")
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To: van_erwin; AmericanInTokyo
As usual, FreeRepublic way ahead of the news curve.

Big News Brewing in Japan?

7 posted on 04/22/2004 11:55:54 AM PDT by Incorrigible (immanentizing the eschaton)
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To: van_erwin
Leftists! Disruptors! Anti-US! Freaks! Pacifists! Every last stinking one of them......
8 posted on 04/22/2004 11:56:55 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Hey...who stole my tag line earlier today? Give it back!!)
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To: AmericanInTokyo
Japan is no Spain. Right?
9 posted on 04/22/2004 12:00:26 PM PDT by ambrose ("I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" - John F. al-Query)
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To: van_erwin
A lively debate indeed, but the bottom line is that the Japanese government has chosen to be true to their word.

They promised assistance, they warned their people, they conducted themselves flawlessly with honor in the face of global compromise.

They warned the rags the Japanese will not be intimidated into a compromise.

Bravo Japan!
10 posted on 04/22/2004 12:03:03 PM PDT by JoeSixPack1 (Kerry was a combat Vet. The jury is still out on which side he was on.)
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To: van_erwin; AmericanInTokyo
They should be arrested for treason. They were probably consorting with the enemy, and working against the coalition. The Ba'athist / Syrian / Iranian insurgents simply found them to be conveniently near at hand. It is also possible that the whole thing was an act, with the "hostage takers" and these Communists in complete collusion. Arrest them all!
11 posted on 04/22/2004 12:06:43 PM PDT by GOP_1900AD (Un-PC even to "Conservatives!" - Right makes right)
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To: van_erwin

HA HA

12 posted on 04/22/2004 4:42:45 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
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To: van_erwin; All
April 22, 2004, 10:51PM

Japan turns back on former hostages held in Iraq
3 captured in Iraq now in hiding
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
New York Times
RESOURCES



TOKYO -- The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare.

The first three hostages, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, first appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats.

"You got what you deserve!" read one handwritten sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare.

The former hostages' transgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call here "okami," or, literally, "what is higher."

Treated like criminals, they have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes. The kidnapped woman, Nahoko Takato, was last seen arriving at her parents' house, looking defeated and dazed from taking tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped her walk and bow deeply before reporters, as a final apology to the nation.

To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages -- Takato, 34, who started her own nonprofit organization to help Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer also interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions -- had acted selfishly.

Pursuing individual goals by defying the government and causing trouble for Japan was simply unforgivable.

But the freed hostages did get official praise from one government, the United States.

"Well, everybody should understand the risk they are taking by going into dangerous areas," said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "But if nobody was willing to take a risk, then we would never move forward. We would never move our world forward.

"And so I'm pleased that these Japanese citizens were willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a better purpose. And the Japanese people should be very proud that they have citizens like this willing to do that."

In contrast, Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese government's spokesman offered this: "They may have gone on their own but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action."


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2524857
13 posted on 04/23/2004 12:56:02 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: kallisti
As long as it's not Yoko Ono, I'm down with it.
14 posted on 04/23/2004 1:04:57 AM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Neither of these lefty hit-pieces bother to mention the widespread suspicion among Japanese that there was active collusion between the kidnappers and their alleged victims, especially the first three.

SF-Chron, NYT, LeMonde and the other usual suspects are desperate to suppress the real issue: growing public awareness of the cozy relationship between media and activist groups on one hand, and terrorists on the other.

15 posted on 04/23/2004 5:48:13 AM PDT by atomic conspiracy (A few words for the media: Julius Streicher, follow his path, share his fate.)
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To: atomic conspiracy
How very interesting.
16 posted on 04/23/2004 7:05:50 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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