Word: golan
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Hideki Akamatsu deploys his forces on a white board in the operations room. A master sergeant in the 45-man Japanese peacekeeping contingent on the Golan Heights, Akamatsu scribbles details of the vehicles he sent out of the base on this morning's mission. "We are well-trained and we are not afraid," he says. "We are ready to handle anything." What he's handling, however, is nothing more dangerous than the outsourced laundry of the Canadian peacekeepers who share Camp Zirouani with the Japanese. Outside, Akamatsu's commanding officer, Major Shinji Furusho stands watch for the laundry truck...
...Japanese government gave a limited mandate to its troops when sending the first contingent to the Golan Heights almost six years ago. Mindful of the fear of Japanese militarism throughout Asia that still lingers from World War II and restrained by the country's constitutional bar on military aggression, Japan proscribed its troops with curtailed rules of engagement. Their presence was meant to be more symbolic than confrontational. Says Lieut. Colonel Amir Mokady, who heads Israel's army liaison with the U.N. forces on the Golan, Israel is glad to have a big industrial nation like Japan participating...
...Such influence isn't readily apparent on the Golan. For the men on the ground who make up Japan's only overseas military operation, the curbs on their duties are surreal, a day-to-day life ripped out of the pages of Catch-22. Soldiers aren't allowed even to shovel snow from the street with troops from other countries because that would be an exercise of collective security. If the stable situation in their section of the Golan were to deteriorate into conflict, Furusho's men are allowed to shoot to kill only in self-defense. The Canadians have...
...Japanese on the Golan have earned a reputation among their peers as disciplined soldiers and meticulous planners, prevented from responding quickly to unexpected situations because their every move has to be checked with Tokyo-based officials. "As Canadians we just wing a lot of things," says Lieut. Colonel Bruce Harding, who commands the joint Canadian-Japanese logistics battalion. "The Japanese are much more precise and orderly. You don't want to surprise them with anything...
...Israelis have given up on reaching any deal over the Golan Heights, and Sharon has no interest in doing one even if he could. So the theater of conflict is once again Lebanon. The Israelis want to make the Lebanese fear the consequences in economic damage of Israel's striking back, hoping that the Lebanese will put pressure on Syria. The Lebanese government doesn't want Hezbollah to keep sniping at Israel in the Shebaa Farms area, which is not even part of Lebanon. The Israelis are also hoping to make the Syrians aware that their own considerable economic stake...