Japan yesterday approved a plan for its troops in South Sudan on UN peacekeeping operations to conduct rescue missions, amid critics’ concerns the move risks embroiling Japanese soldiers in their first overseas fighting since World War II.
The new mandate, which would apply to troops to be dispatched to South Sudan from Sunday, is in line with security legislation enacted last year to expand the overseas role of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF).
“South Sudan cannot assure its peace and stability on its own and for that very reason, a UN peacekeeping operation is being conducted,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a parliamentary committee yesterday. “The SDF ... is carrying out activities that only it can do in a tough environment.”
The Japanese troops are in South Sudan primarily to help build infrastructure in the war-torn country, but under the new mission would be allowed to respond to urgent calls from UN staff and non-governmental organizations’ personnel.
Japanese Minister of Defense Tomomi Inada has said the government does not envision Japanese troops rescuing other foreign troops.
The government also plans to assign the troops another new role made possible by the new legislation: jointly defending UN peacekeepers’ camps with troops from other nations.
Opponents of the move fear the mission would ensnare Japanese troops in fighting for the first time since World War II.
“Security is a concern. If it weren’t dangerous, why would they need to carry guns?” said Kiro Chikazawa, a Tokyo civil servant who took part in a small protest near Abe’s office.
Other critics said the deployment violates conditions for peacekeeping operations set in line with Japan’s pacifist constitution.
“It goes without saying that the operation must be executed within the confines of the constitution and pertinent Japanese laws,” an editorial last month by the Asahi Shimbun said.
“But now, South Sudan is effectively in a state of civil war,” the newspaper added. “Such being the case, we must opposed the assignment of rush and rescue operations to the SDF.”
A civil conflict erupted in South Sudan in December 2013, but South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his rival, former vice president Riek Machar, last year signed a peace deal that was meant to halt the fighting.
The agreement failed to stick. Machar has since left the country and sporadic clashes have continued.
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