Hope, Hostility Greet Japanese

When Japanese troops crossed into Iraq in January, Abdel Raheem Mohammed put a sign in his window.

“We are welcoming our Japanese guests and Friends in our city,” it read, joining other pro-Japan salutations in this town 160 miles southeast of Baghdad. No similar signs have welcomed the South Korean, Dutch or British soldiers who are also stationed nearby.

Residents erected banners reading “Mr. Japan!” A local television station broadcast footage of Japanese troops slaughtering a lamb and giving meat to the poor, an Iraqi custom. The foreign soldiers were also shown speaking Arabic and bowing before delighted officials.

By February, however, Mohammed considered taking his sign down.

The cause for enthusiasm had been media reports saying the Japanese would provide large numbers of jobs in a city where 70% of the 600,000 residents are unemployed, and would repair the city’s water facilities, hospitals and schools.

Reports of new jobs, Samawah residents learned, were greatly exaggerated.

“I felt a similarity with the Japanese because they were also attacked by the U.S.,” Mohammed said from a barber’s chair where he and other men gather each day. “That is why they will provide jobs for every citizen. We heard it from the police and TV.

“But we have not seen anything.”

Japanese military officials say expectations in Samawah significantly exceed what troops can provide. At most, they say, 600 Samawah residents would be hired on a temporary basis. Japan has not announced how much aid, if any, will be spent in Samawah. There are no plans for Japanese companies to move in, as some residents believe.

“Iraqis here are expecting too much,” said an observer in Samawah affiliated with the Japanese military who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are afraid these welcoming feelings will turn to hostility.”

This month, two mortar rounds exploded near a hotel housing Japanese journalists in the city to cover the troops.

The emerging anger directed at Japanese troops underscores the difficulties in accurately communicating what an armed force can and cannot provide. The experience signals problems the United Nations and other groups may experience as they become more involved in guiding Iraq’s future.

Samawah was chosen as the Japanese troops’ destination because it was deemed one of the safest places in Iraq for the foreigners. There is little sympathy for the previous regime here: Funding for schools and hospitals in Samawah ended in 1991, after residents, 80% of whom are Shiite Muslims, joined an uprising against Saddam Hussein.

Safety is a paramount concern. The Japanese Constitution, written by U.S. occupation forces after World War II, prohibits participation in wars -- except in self-defense. No Japanese troops have been killed in combat since 1945.

Last year, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi challenged the constitution’s limits as part of a larger campaign to remake Japan into a “normal nation” with a “real” military. But his decision to send troops to Iraq has been deeply controversial in Japan.

In December, a month after two Japanese diplomats were slain near the northern city of Tikrit, polls indicated that less than a quarter of the Japanese public supported the prime minister’s proposal. By February, however, support for the decision grew to about 50%, largely because of positive media coverage back home, observers say.

Japanese journalists in Iraq, however, say their reports are sunny only because the military prevents them from gathering negative information.

Every morning and evening, Col. Yasushi Kiyota stands outside a Dutch base in Samawah -- where 90 Japanese troops are housed as they build a camp to house the estimated 600 soldiers expected later this month -- and answers questions in Japanese.

The only questions Kiyota answers concern what the troops ate that day, and other minor details. In the month that Japanese forces have been in Iraq, the Japanese media have had access to them only once, and then only as they ate lunch. The only questions soldiers were permitted to answer concerned the size of their meals. They were identified as Soldiers A and B; the Japanese media are forbidden to identify troops by name.

Japanese reporters say the military’s restrictions on the media are part of the government’s stagecraft.

“We do not know if they have shot their guns, or if they have been shot at,” said Jin Ishizaka, a reporter for Japan-based Kyodo News Service who is stationed in Iraq. “We are told if we report, we will be asked to leave the country.”

Positive media accounts also have made their way into Samawah. Few of the city’s residents have met any Japanese soldiers, who are forbidden to enter town. But they have encountered many Japanese journalists, and Samawah television rebroadcasts Japanese news programs in rough translation.

“I have met five Japanese,” said Abass Ali, a teacher out of work for three years. “I am very happy they are here. I am expecting my job soon.”

Complaints, however, are beginning. Every morning, more than 200 young men gather in front of the governor’s office in Samawah to register for employment. They swarm officials leaving the building, shouting about promised jobs.

“When will the jobs come?” Ghasan Naif, 25, asked as a large crowd yelled in agreement. “I was happy when I heard the Japanese were coming. But now I think they just try to make us friends while they steal our oil. If I am mad enough, I will fight.”

Lt. Col. Saad Mohammed, Samawah’s deputy police chief, said his department was investigating threats against the Japanese forces. He believes that the danger stems from a sense of betrayal, he said.

“When people are angry and disappointed, that is why you have explosions,” Mohammed said, referring to the mortar blasts this month. “This is very unusual for Samawah.”

Mirsal Hashim Mohammed, a farmer, owns about 500 of the approximately 1,400 acres that will house the Japanese base. Mohammed said he originally had sought to rent out his land for $2,500 an acre for a year. The Japanese offered him $300. “I thought the Japanese had come here to pay us,” Mohammed said. “Why are they trying to rob us now?”

An influential Shiite cleric living nearby, Maad Waeli, has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, telling his followers to protect the Japanese troops from terrorist attacks.

But, the cleric said, “it has been a month since the Japanese arrived, and people don’t see any changes. We need results, or people will become angry and violent.”