Blue helmets: Japan's peacekeeping role requires deliberate review

The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

The blue helmets with white UN logos, the symbol of United Nations peacekeeping operations, have become a familiar part of the uniform of members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) transportation unit operating in the Golan Heights as part of UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), established to maintain the cease-fire between Israel and Syria.

SDF troops have been there since 1996, and now a unit of several dozen people, the 12th to be sent on the peacekeeping mission to the region, is serving a half-year tour. Members haul food and other daily needs from Israel, Syria and Lebanon to the UNDOF camps in the region and repair roads. Their low-profile yet reliable performance has won high praise from the United Nations.

The scope of SDF participation in UN peacekeeping missions around the globe has developed considerably since 1992 legislation made such contributions possible, with operations ranging from Cambodia to Mozambique to Rwanda to the Golan Heights.

Japan intends to send about 700 SDF personnel, most from the Ground Self-Defense Force, to East Timor to join peacekeeping operations there next spring after the region becomes independent from Indonesia. Their principal mission will be to build and repair roads and bridges.

Japan should help as much as possible in East Timor, ravaged by years of separatist conflict. Cooperation with UN peacekeeping operations should be one of Japan's diplomatic priorities. If the circumstances are suitable for Japan's participation, the government should readily respond to UN requests for cooperation. That is the kind of contribution to world peace that is clearly in keeping with the spirit of our Constitution.

In this environment, the administration and the ruling coalition parties have decided to seek amendments to the law on peacekeeping dispatch in the present extraordinary session of the Diet. The legislation would lift the ban on Japanese participation in core UN peacekeeping missions, imposed when the law was enacted in 1992, and easing restrictions on use of weapons imposed among the five conditions that were placed on SDF involvement in peacekeeping activities as spelled out by the government.

Anticipated SDF activity in East Timor would not include any of the primary peacekeeping roles, such as supervision of disengagement and disarmament of warring forces and disposing of abandoned weapons. So the new legislation is apparently intended to broaden the permissible scope of activities Japanese can be involved in for future missions, and the government probably anticipates operations to help rebuild Afghanistan.

Current rules now let SDF troops use their weapons to protect their colleagues, but not to protect soldiers of other nations or employees of international organizations working beside them. Such inflexible rules certainly undermine SDF's preparedness for unanticipated situations.

But the administration's rush to amendments seems to be a questionable bid to take advantage of the political momentum that was created with adoption of anti-terrorism legislation.

In presenting any new legislation, the administration must explain how the role of SDF personnel in helping refugees and other humanitarian activities under the anti-terrorism law would be related to operations under the revised peacekeeping law. Another question is whether the rules on weapons use in the anti- terrorism law-a temporary statute with a two-year lifespan-must also apply to peacekeeping missions. The Diet needs to vigorously pursue these and other important issues raised by the legislation.

The Defense Agency hopes to reassure the public by noting that SDF personnel have been involved in UN peacekeeping missions for nine years. If Japan hopes to be a leading contributor to international peacekeeping efforts, however, it needs an organization dedicated to that mission alone. One good first step is to establish a peacekeeping unit within the SDF. Another idea that warrants serious consideration is the creation of a peacekeeping activities training center. All these and other issues on Japan's approach to peacekeeping demand a deliberate government approach. Too much haste in responding to the situation, with the primary aim of showing the flag, would achieve little.