Please distribute this text(below the line) as widely as possible after deleting my mailing address.

Thank you!

Love, Peace, and in Solidarity,

Chihaya

_____________________________________

WE ARE ABSOLUTELY APPALLED

- And what have they done? -


As the news around the world nowadays talk about, the strategy that so called "Iraqi insurgents" in Fallujah are taking to make people outside of Iraq aware of the carnage there, is to kidnap foreign nationals.

Three Japanese were taken as hostages over a week, and released after the waves of statements issued by tons of NGO's and civilian groups, as well as rallies in Japan that claimed those three were humanitarian activists striving for Iraqis, and the majority of Japanese citizens are against the deployment of SDF(Self Defence Force) troops over there.

That movement convinced the Muslim clerics and Saraya al-Mujahedeen, the hostage takers which lead to their release. And that effort started while Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was having a feast at a hotel in Tokyo with some mass media personnels even though he had received the news of the incident before he got to the banquet table, where he spent more than two hours drinking. He didn't even go back to his official residence afterwards where many journalists awaiting to interview him.

The head of the clerics who negotiated with the hostage taker clearly commented after the release, that the Japanese Government didn't even try to contact him in order to collect information as to the situation of the hostages. He also criticized the Japanese politicians saying that Iraqis were far more worried about the three than they were.

As you might have heard, the reasons why they entered the country were to

1) Help street children(Ms. Takato)

2) Research the effect of DU(depleted uranium) in order to write a picture book to educate people on this issue(Mr. Imai)

3) Report the current status of Fallujah that major media wouldn't tell us back home, in order to appeal to the public to stop this tragedy on Iraqi citizens(Mr. Koriyama).

However, the Government has started to attack the "activists" and their families far more than anybody could ever imagined.

First of all, there was some systematic campaign to flood the families with phone calls of harassment. Staff at their liaison office who received the calls said, "It was obvious that they were following the same manual cause they all used same terms such as 'You take your own responsibility,' 'Pay the expense,' 'Don't appear on TV any more,' and so on. They were also very persistent to find out who we are and what relationship we have with the families."

But the ones who should "take their own responsibilities" are actually our Government. NGO's and individual humanitarian workers have been building trust in Iraqi people all by themselves even in some dangerous areas, without spending huge sum of money. We Japan as a country owe them for receiving so much trust from people around the world.

Yet, the Governmental decision to send our troops against our opposition and against our constitution, has jeopardized their activities and make our country an enemy in the eyes of Iraqis because we are officially listed as a member of the "Coalition of the Willing"( cpa-iraq.org/pressreleases/20031211_Coalition_Country_List.pdf ). However, the image that the Koizumi Administration has been emphasizing to the public is that they are there for humanitarian mission. And many ordinary Japanese probably don't know that we are an official member of the CPA, nor the fact that NGO's and individual humanitarian workers can do a lot better job with much less money than the SDF is spending now, who definitely appear as "military soldiers" armed and in their uniforms for combats.

Even so, we the commoners succeeded to get the hostages back safely with the wonderful cooperation and support from Iraqi citizens. WE THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN AND IRAQ HAVE BEEN CONNECTED.

And our Government certainly did not like it.
The blames they are putting on the three are:

1) "Take your responsibility"

i.e. "When we issue the advice to evacuate the country, you have no other choice but leave. And you must not go back to Iraq to help Iraqis."

But in fact, there are still many journalists and civilians from Japan within the country. And it was said that the clerics asked the three to go to Fallujah to see the horrifying situation and we heard that Mr. Koriyama wished to go. According to the Government officials' comments, it seems he does not have the freedom to do what he wants to do.

2) "Pay the expense for the rescue"

What expense?
When they haven't even negotiated with the clerics?

Yes, they arranged an SDF aircraft awaiting in Amman to fly them back home, but that was to show off and give an impression to Japanese people as if the Government had done a lot to rescue them, and to convince the citizens that it was a good idea to send the troops over to Iraq so that we could utilize their presence to safely evacuate them. But the fact is, this kidnapping wouldn't have happened if we didn't send the SDF troops out there. What a sophistry!

We heard that the three activists chose to take a commercial flights instead. They will do so unless the Deputy Foreign Minister Aizawa who's been escorting them ever since their release "convinces" them to change their mind.

And this argument of "Pay the expense" was started by the Chief Secretary of Komei-to (coalition party) Fuyushiba who is now insisting that the estimate of the sum of money should be revealed to the public at least.

But even if there was such an expense, would they do the same if the hostages were public officials? Would they make the released pay for it?

3) "Apologize to the public on return"

For what?

Even the Secretary of the State of the United States of America Mr. Colin Powell said in the interview done by JNN(TBS),

"Regarding some people in Japan criticizing the three as reckless or demanding them to take their responsibility, I believe Japanese should be proud of somebody like them, the civilians who willingly go into Iraq for good cause, despite the danger. You should never say that it's their fault even if they get captured."
(Translated from Japanese article back to English)

We thought that the Koizumi Administration would always listen to the top officials of the U.S. Government, but this time is an incredible exception and they seem to ignore what Mr. Powell told us.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Also I heard a folk singer in Osaka wrote on his webpage:

"They talk about 'self responsibility' all over in this country after the release. The former Minister of Education said, 'It's like they went into the water ignoring the flag that said No Swimming' but that is not the case. The correct version should be, 'They saw somebody drowning where there happened to be the flag standing, so they went in to rescue them."

Well, I wouldn't even say that because the water was calm before the invasion. So it was not even Iraqi citizens' fault that they are drowning now.

One more thing we noticed is that our TV stopped showing the three activists as soon as they were released. Prior, they were talking about them from morning till night day after day. Quite a contrast, the amount of coverage they get now.

We heard that Japanese police has started investigating the three but we never hear from them directly after the flood of their images captured while they were in Iraq.

Who knows - they could have been safe and well fed while in the hand of Saraya al-Mujahedeen than now.

So, how can we protect them when they come back to Japan or even now when we don't get any coverage of them at all but only the criticism?

Could you possibly lend us a hand? Because it seems all the media are taken over by somebody who pleases our Government officials and do not tell us what makes sense, and many Japanese don't really hear what the Islam clerics told the world. And surprisingly, a journalist who is considered to be "liberal" is telling us that the three should apologize to the public on their return.

But for what???????