The two officials, who will visit at the end of the month, are being sent in response to a Foreign Ministry request to secure the safety of Japanese people stationed there, the agency said.
With experience in U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping operations (PKO), the two will collect information mainly from military experts of the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) in charge of security issues, according to the agency.
They will return home in mid-September following the Aug. 30 parliamentary election, it said.
The two are also expected to gather information about PKO in East Timor, given agency chief Gen Nakatani’s desire to study plans to dispatch personnel of the Self-Defense Forces in the event of new PKO there.
East Timor is now under the administration of the U.N. as it goes through a transition to full independence. An overwhelming vote for independence for East Timor from Indonesia in a U.N.-administered referendum Aug. 30, 1999 was followed by a wave of violence and destruction by Indonesian military-backed militias (sic).
See also:
Jun
30 JCCJP: Japanese church leaders oppose Japanese troops in East Timor
Position statement added July 10
"Most Japanese people want Japan to contribute
to world peace first and foremost by strictly adhering to its war-renouncing
“peace constitution.” ... The present government plan to send the SDF to
join a peace keeping operation in East is directly opposed to theses, the
fervently held wishes of our people. Furthermore, this newly planned dispatch
of Japanese troops to East Timor is particularly callous in light of the
Government’s refusal to this day to fully acknowledge, apologize for, or
compensate the army’s sex slaves and other victims of Japan’s occupation
of East Timor during the Pacific War." Japanese Catholic Council for Justice
and Peace
Feb
12 Xanana: Symposium on “Reconciliation, Tolerance, Human Rights and Elections”
Speech added Feb 15
"We believe that after the rebellion of
the Manufahi, the Timorese People, obviously still divided by kingdoms,
lived an era of a better relationship among themselves until the period
before the Japanese invasion. The Japanese invasion, from 1942 to 1945,
was another test to the courage of the Timorese people which concurrently
managed to live with the invaders while maintaining a determination to
fight its presence. I am from the generation post-Japanese invasion. From
this period until the Indonesian invasion 30 years went by." President
Xanana
Dec
10 2000 KY: ETimor: 2 ex-sex slaves break silence at NGO tribunal
Added Dec 11
"Two East Timorese women broke over half
a century of silence Sunday and told of their ordeals as sex slaves of
the Imperial Japanese Army at a mock tribunal to try the Japanese government
over its responsibility for the recruitment of so-called ''comfort women''
before and during World War II." Kyodo
Dec
8 2000 DPA: Women demand apology & compensation for War-time Japanese
mistreatment Added Dec 9
"The Japanese government, which failed
to respond to the tribunal's invitation to participate in the event, continues
to deny any legal responsibility for the suffering of the former comfort
women. Sexual violence committed by the Japanese Imperial Army was hardly
touched by the 1946-1948 International Military Tribunal for the Far East
in Tokyo, set up by the Allied Forces after the war." Deutsche Presse-Agentur
1999
Gunn: Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years - Wartime Timor: 1942-45
Book extract added July 10
"Many Timorese including liurai paid with
their lives [at the hands of Japanese military 1942-45] either for standing
neutral or for alleged support of Australian guerrillas. ... The number
of Timorese who died during the war is impossible to calculate with precision
but is of the order of 40-70,000 out of a total prewar population of around
450,000. The disruption to native agriculture and the breakdown of prewar
society stemming from the harsh system of food collection and corvees imposed
by the Japanese inevitably led to famine and other hardships, including
debilitating disease. ... The issues of Japanese wartime compensation including
the claims of so-called "comfort women" or sexual slavery in Timor first
became public in 1997 but only in the Macau media where it was taken up
by Jose Ramos-Horta speaking on behalf of the Timorese people." Geoffrey
C. Gunn, author, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years
Sept
27 1999 Noam Chomsky: East Timor Retrospective - An overview and lessons
Analysis added Dec 28
"The story does
not begin in 1975. East Timor had not been overlooked by the planners of
the postwar world. The territory should be granted independence, Roosevelt's
senior adviser Sumner Welles mused, but "it would certainly take a thousand
years." With an awe-inspiring display of courage and fortitude, the people
of East Timor have struggled to confound that cynical prediction, enduring
monstrous disasters. Perhaps 50,000 lost their lives protecting a small
contingent of Australian commandoes fighting the Japanese; their heroism
may have saved Australia from Japanese invasion. A third of the population
were victims of the first years of the 1975 Indonesian invasion, many more
since." Noam Chomsky