Japanese Hostages Return From Iraq to Hostility, Not Hero Status

In a country where ritual apologies are offered for the slightest offense, Nobutaka Watanabe is having none of it.

A wide swath of Japanese public opinion blames Watanabe and four other former hostages released by Iraqi insurgents for bringing their troubles upon themselves -- and wants to hear them say they’re sorry for the kidnappings that swiftly turned into a national trauma.

“There is no good reason to apologize to the Japanese people,” Watanabe, a 36-year-old human rights activist, said Wednesday. “If I am going to apologize to anyone I will apologize to the Iraqi people, because it is my government that has sent soldiers to their country.”

In this country that remains sharply divided over what role to play in the occupation of Iraq, the debate centers on what the Japanese call jiko sekinin, or personal responsibility. The government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has wielded the term like a fist against the freed hostages -- all of them civilians -- accusing them of endangering more than their own lives by ignoring official warnings against traveling through a war zone.

But critics counter that castigating the hostages is merely a way to deflect attention from Koizumi’s decision to send Japanese troops to Iraq.

“The Japanese people’s attitude toward the victims is very weird,” says Kenji Kataoka, secretary general of the human rights group that sponsored Watanabe’s trip. “What about the government’s responsibility? The government is just trying to cover up its false step.”

But with opinion polls showing more than two-thirds of voters supporting Koizumi’s handling of the hostage crisis, the government shows little sign of altering course. On Wednesday, officials said they were still considering billing the five hostages, released after as much as a week in captivity, for the costs of returning them. The government says it spent about $18 million flying negotiators to the Middle East -- it says no ransom was paid -- and that the hostages have a moral responsibility to foot at least a portion of the cost, even if only the air fare back.

It is a far cry from the way newly freed hostages are welcomed in Western countries, where they are more likely to be embraced as media heroes. Released Canadian hostage Fadi Fadel, for example, returned to Montreal from Iraq on Tuesday night and was greeted at the airport by cheering friends and relatives. A local bakery gave him a cake topped with a massive Canadian flag.

There have been no Pvt. Jessica Lynch moments for the Japanese hostages.

The Japanese government has treated them and their families more like troublemakers. Some of that hostility may stem from a reaction to the families’ original call for Koizumi to grant the hostage-takers’ demand for Japanese troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.

But officials were scolding the hostages even during the sensitive days when negotiations were foundering and their lives in danger. “They may have gone on their own, but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action,” said Yasuo Fukuda, chief secretary to the Cabinet.

That opinion swelled as conservative media outlets, including two mass-circulation weekly magazines, weighed in with unflattering personal stories about the hostages’ private lives.

Headlines in the Shukan Shincho referred sarcastically to kidnapped 34-year-old aid worker Nahoko Takato’s “great life” that included taking up smoking at age 12 and drugs at 15.

Other media outlets suggested that the hostages had an antiwar agenda, saying that 18-year-old hostage Noriaki Imai had been raised in a “Marxist household.”

“It is not unusual that victims, not victimizers, are accused in Japan,” said Kenichi Asano, a media critic at Kyoto’s Doshisha University, pointing to the rough media treatment frequently meted out to female victims of sexual assault. “But it seems it’s getting incredibly harsher in this case. Japanese media picked out anything unique or repugnant about the victims and their families -- just for the circulation.

“Those five people were released in Iraq,” Asano added, “only to be back in Japan to be taken hostage again.”

The families appeared to sense a hardening in public opinion against them. They apologized for their initial “impolite attitude.” And when the original trio of hostages was released April 15, the families used a news conference to deliver abject apologies for having inconvenienced the country and the government.

On the same day, when freelance journalist Junpei Yasuda, 30, was captured along with Watanabe outside Fallouja, Yasuda’s father, Hideaki, told reporters: “I just wanted to hit him and say, ‘You idiot!’ ”

Watanabe said his parents are “pretty happy” now that he’s home safely.

“I’m 36 years old, so my parents can’t really get too angry at me,” he said.

Times special correspondent Rie Sasaki in Tokyo contributed to this report.