They were having dinner in a restaurant
during Ramadan, which could not be blamed as foreigners, though. Armed group
with Islamic faith raided a restaurant in Dhaka on Friday, killing 20 people
including 7 Japanese workers on a development project. Japanese government,
topped by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, tried hard to rescue the Japanese hostages,
which was not successful. The incident showed fundamental vulnerability of the Japanese
in terrorism in overseas.
The terrorists shouted “Allahu Akbar,” when
they rushed into the restaurant. Taking 35 customers custody, the terrorists
demanded them to recite Quran, which became a condition to be spared. In a
plunge by Bangladeshi security army, 6 terrorists were killed and 13 hostages
were rescued, while others were killed. Islamic State claimed responsibility on
the incident.
Japanese government launched emergency
headquarters in the Embassy in Dhaka. Prime Minister Abe held a meeting of
National Security Council in his official residence, after canceling his
election campaign trip to Hokkaido. Abe expressed his regret on occurrence of
victims, while offering support and solidarity, in a telephone talk with
Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.
Japanese government made two new attempts
to deal with the incident. One was to send Emergency Response Team, which was
headed by Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs. The team was established after terrorism
in Algeria in 2013, in which 10 Japanese workers in a development project was killed.
Another was to dispatch International Terrorism Information Collecting Unit,
which consisted with experts in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of
Defense or National Police Agency. The unit was launched after the killing of
Japanese journalist in Syria last year.
The lesson of those two past incidents was that
it was hard for Japanese government to make meaningful action in terrorism in
foreign country. Although there was an argument to make new legislation to send
Japanese Self-Defense Force for rescuing purpose to the country or the neighbor,
it proved to be ridiculous to violate sovereignty of foreign nation for helping
Japanese people. ERT or ITICU did not work in terms of not achieving rescuing
all the hostages.
Serious enough for Japan, even Japanese
civilians are target of terrorists. In spite of the pacifism provisions in
Constitution of Japan, including renouncement of war or non-possession of arms,
the Japanese will be convenient soft targets as long as it cannot distinguish
its presence from United States. Simply hating terrorism or showing
determination to fight terrorism is not the answer.
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