Saturday, April 17, 2004
From TODAYonline:
On Friday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was irked when asked about their desire to return.
"A great number of people in the government, forgetting food and sleep, worked for their rescue … They should realise this," said Mr Koizumi, who faced the worst crisis of his administration as Tokyo worked for their release.
The foreign ministry said Tokyo would bill the three for part of the cost of chartering an aircraft to transport them from Baghdad to Dubai.
The three would also have to pay for a medical check-up and the flight from Dubai to Japan.
Most likely, we won't know the exact circumstances that had resulted in their kidnapping or release, but I find it ridiculous that they should be made to give up what they had originally set out to do. There's nothing wrong in returning home to announce their safety and give thanks, but lives shouldn't be changed just because of this episode. If it does, the Saraya al-Mujahedeen (Mujahedeen Brigades) would have, well sort of, succeeded in achieving their aims. I don't see why Koizumi should be irritated other than for reasons linked to his political endeavors. To him and his cronies, such episodes would always result in hard-to-handle crisis situations that diplomats want to avoid unlike model PR babies-carrying trigger-happy events. No matter how politically-correct the administration would in the end put it, to me it will simply be vengeance 'killing' on their part by billing the three on the costs incurred to transport them safely back to Japan. Don't governments of today uphold and value individual rights... at all? Considering that the governments might have secretly paid off the terrorists or concluded some under-the-table deals to secure releases, they probably don't.
On Friday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was irked when asked about their desire to return.
"A great number of people in the government, forgetting food and sleep, worked for their rescue … They should realise this," said Mr Koizumi, who faced the worst crisis of his administration as Tokyo worked for their release.
The foreign ministry said Tokyo would bill the three for part of the cost of chartering an aircraft to transport them from Baghdad to Dubai.
The three would also have to pay for a medical check-up and the flight from Dubai to Japan.
Most likely, we won't know the exact circumstances that had resulted in their kidnapping or release, but I find it ridiculous that they should be made to give up what they had originally set out to do. There's nothing wrong in returning home to announce their safety and give thanks, but lives shouldn't be changed just because of this episode. If it does, the Saraya al-Mujahedeen (Mujahedeen Brigades) would have, well sort of, succeeded in achieving their aims. I don't see why Koizumi should be irritated other than for reasons linked to his political endeavors. To him and his cronies, such episodes would always result in hard-to-handle crisis situations that diplomats want to avoid unlike model PR babies-carrying trigger-happy events. No matter how politically-correct the administration would in the end put it, to me it will simply be vengeance 'killing' on their part by billing the three on the costs incurred to transport them safely back to Japan. Don't governments of today uphold and value individual rights... at all? Considering that the governments might have secretly paid off the terrorists or concluded some under-the-table deals to secure releases, they probably don't.
