Hostages' ordeal stirs tension in Japan
TOKYO -- Three Japanese civilians who were held hostage by insurgents left Iraq yesterday, but their ordeal exposed lingering tension over Japan's role in Iraq.
The kidnappings also presented Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a close US ally in Iraq, with his biggest challenge in his campaign to make Japan a major international player.
On the political right, supporters of Koizumi's Iraq policy voiced anger at the three over their abduction, saying they had put themselves at risk. Media in Japan portrayed the three as reckless pacifists who ignored government advisories against travel to Iraq.
''They are like people climbing Mount Fuji without wearing any clothes to prevent the cold," Takahiko Tanaka, a professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, said.
But leftists and other opponents of Koizumi's Iraq policy said Japan has left the country vulnerable to terrorists after dispatching 550 noncombat troops to Iraq for reconstruction work.
The former hostages -- Nahoko Takato, 34, an aid volunteer; Noriaki Imai, 19, a member of a civic group; and Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance photographer -- are to return to Japan tomorrow from the United Arab Emirates.
The militants had threatened to burn them alive unless Koizumi withdrew Japanese troops, which he refused.
Two other Japanese civilians, meanwhile, were still missing late yesterday: Jumpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of a civic group. They disappeared in Iraq on Wednesday.
The decision to send troops to Iraq continues to divide Japanese.
Since assuming office in April 2001, Koizumi has steered Japan toward a larger role in the international community. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States, he pushed for an amendment to Japan's 1947 pacifist constitution that would allow its Self-Defense Forces to be deployed in a conflict area.
Japan was also a key donor toward reconstruction in Afghanistan, and hosted an international conference on the issue in 2002.
Koizumi and much of the public want Japan to be viewed as an equal international partner. Japan also covets a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Toward those ends, Koizumi seeks significant constitutional reform, including changes that would permit the military to engage in conflicts on foreign soil.
''The government is pushing ahead in changes in the constitution, and there is tension," said David Leheny, an associate professor from the University of Wisconsin who is a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo. ''I think the [hostage] crisis revealed the basic divisions between the left and right over what role Japan should be playing in the world."
Leheny, a Japan specialist, also said conservatives think Japan ''ought to be picking its fights independent of US guidance." He added that there is a basic suspicion among Japanese conservatives and liberals alike about US motives in Iraq and the world.
With the release of the hostages, and barring tragedy with the two missing civilians, Koizumi has survived the biggest threat to his political future, and just before a summer election in the upper house of Parliament.
Yesterday, , a new controversy arose when two of the freed hostages announced they intended to return to their work in Iraq.
Koizumi reacted angrily to the news, according to Reuters. ''A great number of people in the government, forgetting food and sleep, worked for their rescue," he said. ''They should realize this."
