Japan Troops Battle Ennui in Cambodia

It’s Sunday in Cambodia and members of the Japanese engineering battalion are munching on canned almonds, drinking Japanese beer and listening to the classic soul sounds of James Brown.

Nothing could be less warlike. And that is perhaps just what the 600-man battalion wants to prove in the camp at Takeo, 40 miles south of Phnom Penh and the nearest sushi, cable television and swimming pool.

The men are among the more than 20,000 from 40 countries participating in the U.N. operation to guide Cambodia out of two decades of bloody conflict and into democratic elections next year.

They also are part of Japan’s controversial first deployment of ground troops abroad since World War II.

Some Asian nations that suffered Japanese atrocities during World War II have expressed fears that deployment might lead to a revival of militarism. There have been many protests in South Korea against the deployment.

Japanese opposition parties have opposed the deployment as a violation of the country’s postwar constitution, which bans the use of force to settle international disputes.

More than 2,000 protesters rallied near a military base west of Tokyo in mid-October, and arson attacks were reported as the last Japanese units left for Cambodia.

But Cambodia suffered relatively little at Japan’s hands during World War II. Its current political leaders all have welcomed the Japanese deployment and most ordinary people are not worried.

“I think that they come to help my people, not to make war,” said Chhoun Sok, a 28-year-old clerk. “I think that the Japanese, nowadays, they dislike war. They won’t make World War III.”

The Japanese soldiers are eager to make this mission a success.

“We Japanese, in our former army and navy, killed Asian people in World War II,” said Master Sgt. Kaneyasu Ito of Nagoya. “So we have to work for the Asian people.”

Lt. Col. Yusuke Fukui said the mission will prove to the world that, “We came here to keep international peace. We don’t fight. Peace. Peace. Not fighting. Not war.”

At the end of October, the battalion began repairing war-shattered national Route 3.

For the troops, who are on six-month tours of duty, there are few distractions beyond Takeo’s noodle and snack shops.

“We can sleep, listen to music, write letters, kill beers and smoke cigarettes,” Sgt. First Class Kiyotaka Kusanagi of Zentsuji city in Kagawa prefecture told a visitor to his 32-cot tent.

Several soldiers said they don’t sleep well at night because of the gunshots that ring out when darkness falls. Cambodia’s four warring factions signed a peace agreement a year ago, but small skirmishes continue in the countryside.

“I am afraid because every night we hear shooting, and we cannot carry our weapons,” said Ito. “We don’t have anything.”

Although the Japanese troops completed their deployment on Oct. 14, their rifles and pistols were not expected to arrive until weeks later, Kaneko said.

He said the weapons won’t provide much security because they have to be locked up to prove to the world that the troops are in Cambodia on a mission of peace, not war.