Japanese naval ships returned home on Saturday at the close of an eight-year refueling mission in support of US-led military operations in Afghanistan, as strains persist in the US-Japan alliance.
On the same day Japan dispatched peacekeeping troops to Haiti to help deal with the aftermath of the Caribbean nation’s huge earthquake.
The 13,500-tonne supply ship Mashu and the 4,550-tonne destroyer Ikazuchi, with some 340 personnel on board, arrived at Harumi Wharf in Tokyo Bay to a welcome from their families and government officials.
Last month Minister of Defense Toshimi Kitazawa announced an end to the Indian Ocean mission supplying oil and water to vessels used by international forces engaged in Afghanistan.
The move fulfilled a pledge by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s center-left government, which ousted the long-ruling conservatives five months ago promising a less subservient relationship with the US.
Hatoyama, whose coalition includes the strongly pacifist Social Democrats, has reiterated that Japan will not deploy troops to Afghanistan, instead pledging to step up humanitarian aid to the war-torn country.
“As prime minister, I am proud of your professionalism,” Hatoyama said as he and Kitazawa welcomed home the ships and their crew.
“Our government will positively play an appropriate role in humanitarian assistance, prevention of terrorism and UN peacekeeping activities,” he said.
The return coincided with the departure of a first batch of some 350 Japanese troops for Haiti to join the UN peacekeeping mission there.
It will be Japan’s first participation in foreign UN peacekeeping operations under the Hatoyama administration.
The first batch of about 160 ground troops left Tokyo’s Haneda airport and was to arrive in Haiti yesterday, officials said.
“Our turn has finally come,” Masaharu Yamamoto, head of the mission, told a departing ceremony. “Representing Japan, we will do our best to work for people in Haiti with our pride and sincerity in mind.”
The troops, mostly engineers and logistical support staff, are expected to remove rubble, repair roads and build shelters for quake victims.
Japan’s military is barred from fighting abroad under the country’s pacifist post-war Constitution, but it has joined non-combat operations including in Iraq and as part of anti-piracy patrols off Somalia.
In related news, disapproval ratings for Hatoyama exceeded his approval ratings for the first time since he came to power last year, newspapers reported yesterday, amid a simmering money scandal.
The polls were taken after Tokyo prosecutors last week decided there was “insufficient evidence” to file charges against political kingmaker Ichiro Ozawa after an investigation into allegations of bribery.
Ozawa, a veteran politician and architect of center-left Hatoyama’s landslide election victory in August, had faced allegations that he laundered bribe money from a construction firm.
Prosecutors indicted three of Ozawa’s current and former aides for alleged accounting irregularities.
The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun said the disapproval rating for Hatoyama’s Cabinet rose five points from last month to 47 percent, overtaking the approval rating, which stood at 44 percent, for the first time.
The liberal Asahi Shimbun said Hatoyama’s disapproval rating increased to 45 percent, overtaking the approval rating at 41 percent.
Yomiuri said that 74 percent believed Ozawa should quit the number-two post of secretary general in the ruling Democratic Party, while Asahi said 68 percent responded likewise. Both surveys polled more than 1,000 voters.
Japan’s opposition has been on the offensive over the scandals involving Ozawa and Hatoyama, who also faces allegations that he tried to evade inheritance tax.
“Insufficient evidence only means the case [of Ozawa] remains in the gray zone,” said Toshimitsu Motegi, a member of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, in a debate program on public broadcaster NHK. “We will continue pursuing facts in parliament sessions.”
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