A few articles for discussion among the news geeks:
Pentagon upset that photos of flag draped coffins have been leaked:
and
Interesting cultural differences: Japanese hostages are shunned and hated in their own country:
Freed From Captivity in Iraq, Japanese Return to More Pain
April 23, 2004
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
TOKYO, April 22 - 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.
Three of them, including a woman who helped street children
on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks
ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to
slit their throats. A few days after their release, they
landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese
storm.
"You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written 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.
Beneath the surface of Japan's ultra-sophisticated cities
lie the hierarchical ties that have governed this island
nation for centuries and that, at moments of crises,
invariably reassert themselves. 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, the three former hostages 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 tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped
her walk and bow deeply before reporters, as a final
apology to the nation.
Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who examined the three
former hostages twice since their return, said the stress
they were enduring now was "much heavier" than what they
experienced during their captivity in Iraq. Asked to name
their three most stressful moments, the former hostages
told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were
kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding
incident, and the moment they watched a television show the
morning after their return here and realized Japan's anger
with them.
"Let's say the knife incident, which lasted about 10
minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level," Dr. Saito said in an
interview at his clinic on Thursday. "After they came back
to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level
ranked 12."
To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages - Nahoko
Takato, 34, who started a nonprofit organization to help
Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a freelance
photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a freelance writer
interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions - had
acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a
separate incident - Junpei Yasuda, 30, a freelance
journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an
anti-war group - were equally guilty.
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 about the captives' ordeal: "They
may have gone on their own but they must consider how many
people they caused trouble to because of their action."
The criticism began almost immediately after the first
three civilians were kidnapped two weeks ago. The
environment minister, Yuriko Koike, blamed them for being
"reckless."
After the hostages' families asked that the government
yield to the kidnappers' demand and withdraw its 550 troops
from southern Iraq, they began receiving hate mail and
harassing faxes and e-mail messages. The Japanese, like the
villagers in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," had to throw
stones.
Even as the kidnappers were still threatening to burn alive
the three hostages, Yukio Takeuchi, an official in the
Foreign Ministry, said of the three, "When it comes to a
matter of safety and life, I would like them to be aware of
the basic principle of personal responsibility."
The Foreign Ministry, held both in awe and resentment by
many Japanese, was the okami defied in this case. While
Foreign Ministry officials are Japan's super elite, the
average Japanese tends to regard them as arrogant and
unhelpful, recalling how they failed to deliver in time the
declaration of war against the United States in 1941 so
that Japan became forever known as a sneak-attack nation.
Defying the okami are young Japanese people like the freed
hostages, freelancers and members of nonprofit
organizations, who are traditionally held in low esteem in
a country where the bigger one's company, the bigger one's
social rank. They also belong to a generation in which many
have rejected traditional Japanese life. Many have
gravitated instead to places like the East Village in
Manhattan, looking for something undefined.
Others have gone to Iraq looking to report the true story,
since Japan's big media outlets have generally avoided
dangerous places. (Almost all of them left Iraq over the
last week on a government-chartered plane, leaving Japan's
most important military mission since the end of World War
II essentially ignored by the news media.)
Mr. Yasuda - who was in the second group of hostages and
also described the stress of his return as far greater than
what he felt during his captivity in Iraq - quit his
position as a staff reporter at a regional newspaper to
report as a freelancer in Iraq.
"We have to check ourselves what the Japanese government is
doing in Iraq," Mr. Yasuda said during an interview
Thursday night. "This is the responsibility on the part of
Japanese citizens, but it seems as if people are leaving
everything up to the government."
The okami reacted with fury at such defiance. Some
politicians proposed a law barring Japanese from traveling
to dangerous countries; even more of them said that the
hostages should pay the costs incurred by the government in
securing their release.
"This is an idea that should be considered," The Yomiuri
Shimbun, Japan's biggest daily newspaper, said in an
editorial. "Such an act might deter other reckless,
self-righteous volunteers."
When two freed hostages mentioned wanting to stay or return
to Iraq to continue their work, Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi angrily urged them "to have some sense."
"Many government officials made efforts to rescue them,
without even eating and sleeping, and they are still saying
that sort of thing?" he said.
The comment was revealing, one that would not likely be
heard from the United States government. Here, the
government is now trumpeting "personal responsibility" for
those going to dangerous areas - essentially saying that
travelers shouldn't expect any help from the government to
secure their safety or get out of trouble.
Again, no Japanese politician dared to speak out against
this idea.
Indeed, Mr. Koizumi's handling of the hostage crisis
translated into positive evaluations in public opinion
polls, and the issue diverted attention from Iraq's
worsening security situation and the fact that Japan's
troops, according to this country's war-renouncing
Constitution, are supposed to be in a noncombat zone.
Grasping Japan's attitude toward them, the hostages found
themselves under crushing pressure, Dr. Saito said.
According to him, Mr. Imai, the 18-year-old former hostage,
registered a high blood pressure reading. Ms. Takato, who
had a pulse rate of over 120 beats per minute, kept
bursting into tears. When the doctor told her she had done
good work in Iraq, she cried convulsively and said, "But
I've done wrong, haven't I?"
On Tuesday, Ms. Takato used the tranquilizers Dr. Saito
gave her and finally left Tokyo for her hometown in
Hokkaido. Ms. Takato, the news media reported, expressed
fear about returning to her family home, but she may as
well have been talking about returning to Japan. "I feel
like going back home quickly, but I'm also afraid of going
home."



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