4 ANALYSIS & FEATURE TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

Could small nations lead the way to peace?

By Chris Williams

Before his election success,

Yukio Hatoyama promised to
get an assurance from Barak
Obama that American nuclear
weapons will never again be
brought into Japanese territory.
It is assumed that U.S. war-
ships carrying nuclear weapons
have covertly used Japan’s
ports.
The promise reflects Hato-
yama’s name — Hato means
“dove,” the bird of peace. And
the date when Hatoyama’s vic-
tory was affirmed, Sept. 1 seems
auspicious. It marks the 70th Chris Williams
anniversary of the start of
World War II. ● Chris Williams is based at
But Japan is many years be- the Center for International
hind New Zealand. In 1984, Education and Research,
Prime Minister David Lange University of Birmingham,
stopped nuclear-powered or nu- United Kingdom.
clear-armed ships using New ● He can be reached at
Zealand ports or entering New
chrisunula@yahoo.com
Zealand waters, with the “New
Zealand Nuclear Free Zone,
Disarmament, and Arms
Control Act.”
The act precludes “entry into
the internal waters of New
Zealand by any ship whose
propulsion is wholly or partly
dependent on nuclear power.” It
bans the dumping of radioactive
waste within the nuclear-free
zone, as well as prohibiting any
New Zealand citizen or resident
“to manufacture, acquire, pos-
sess, or have any control over
any nuclear explosive device.”
As with Japan, the United
States would “neither confirm
nor deny” whether U.S. ships in
the vicinity of New Zealand car-
ried nuclear materials. The act
therefore effectively prevented
any U.S. military ships entering
New Zealand waters. This was a
brave move by a small country
against a world superpower
during the Cold War.
During this time, a diplomat
called Kennedy Graham was in- The mention of Israel is, by peace free from fear of war and in The Korea Herald, “Is war in 2005, the Korean government leads with the highest number the large nations will not.
volved in negotiating the South coincidence, very relevant. This violence. For it is only through Korea a success story?” The in- declared Jeju Island as a “peace 22,800. China has 7,580, and Next week, the debate on Ken
Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, and week saw the former Israeli peace among men and nations ternational perception of ongo- island,” and plans for a “Peace America 7,851. With all its Graham’s bill will continue in
defending the policy before the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the universal longing for ing conflict needs factual clarifi- Island School” should come into rhetoric about “punching above New Zealand. During previous
U.N. in Geneva and New York. indicted concerning three cor- happiness can be fulfilled. It is cation. Since 1953 remarkably fruition this month. One of the its weight” in military terms, discussions, labor MP Chris
Recently Graham, now a Green ruption cases. Olmert is the first our fervent hope and prayer few war-related deaths have oc- core projects is to set up “World Britain has just 393. Carter concluded that the bill,
MP in the New Zealand parlia- former prime minister in Israeli that the Seoul Olympics will be curred on the peninsular, Peace Tribunal” — an interna- It seems legitimate that coun- “builds on the excellent work
ment, achieved the first reading history to face criminal charges, a catalyst for securing enduring around 1,373. This is 27 per tional court of arbitration like tries that are part of large conti- this country has done — a small
of a remarkable new bill, the and his personal secretary, peace.” year, which is far fewer than in the Hague Tribunal. The gradu- nents may consider tanks as a country, but one with a powerful
“International nonaggression Shula Zaken, has also been Three years later, in 1991, conflicts in Iraq or Northern ate school will have15 foreign necessary strategic defense, be- voice in the world — on the ban-
and lawful use of force bill.” charged. Two former Israeli South Korea joined the United Ireland, and half the rate of scholars including two profes- cause aggressors can simply ning of cluster munitions, and
The visionary aspect of this cabinet ministers were recently Nations, and KOICA, the traffic deaths in the U.K. sors from the U.N.-mandated march across the border. the use of landmines. These are
bill is that it would hold political given jail sentences for bribery Korean agency, which promotes Without this misperception, University for Peace, estab- Britain might justify its tanks all things that have given this
leaders directly to account for and embezzlement. peace across the world through perhaps we should be less sur- lished in Costa Rica “to promote on the basis of defending the small country an enormous rep-
what Graham calls “a leader- These moves are examples of international aid, was founded. prised by Korea’s engagement the U.N.’s spirit of understand- remnants of its Empire, such as utation in the world.”
ship crime,” in this case any in- a new trend — that “leadership Just 16 years later, Korea pro- in world peace. Long before the ing, tolerance and peaceful coex- The Falklands. Hone Harawira of the Maori
volvement in aggression that is crime” is will no longer be per- vided the U.N. with its present Olympics Korea had started to istence around the world.” But what is the rationale for party agreed. “The example that
contrary to the U.N. Charter. mitted in the world. The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. export taekwondo around the Costa Rica is probably the those U.S. tanks? Unless Aotearoa (N. Zealand) offers the
Put simply, if Britain had a law International Criminal Court In 1992, Ban had become vice world. The oath of those who most famous peace nation, be- America is concerned about an world in terms of philosophy of
like the one Graham proposes, has already demonstrated this chairman of the South-North practice this martial art states, cause in 1949 it became the first invasion from Mexico or peaceful resistance and leader-
Tony Blair would probably have fact to powerful despots such as Joint Nuclear Control Com- “I shall never misuse taekwon- country to formally abolish its Canada, they can only find their ship.” He mentioned the story of
faced trial for British aggression Slobodan Milosevic and Sudan’s mission, following the adoption do. I shall be a champion of free- military forces. Dominica fol- way into action via a plane or the indigenous “people of
in Iraq. President Omar al-Bashir. by South and North Korea of dom and justice. I shall build a lowed in 1981, Grenada in 1983 aircraft carrier. They are in- Taranaki, who in 1881 refused
Graham points out that al- A few years after New the Joint Declaration of the more peaceful world.” The ethos and Panama in 1990. It is less tended for aggression overseas. to fight at Parihaka, instead
ready “there is at least one occa- Zealand became a nuclear free Denuclearization of the Korean is effective. Last week I met a well-known that, outside Latin This puts into perspective an- drawing on their traditions of
sion where New Zealand clearly zone, in 1988, South Korea took Peninsula. While ambassador to respected practitioner of the art America, Iceland has not had a other country on the Asian con- passive resistance.” He contin-
committed aggression — peace as the theme of the Austria he had worked as chair- in Britain. Siamak Yazdani is standing army since 1869, and tinent, which we are told is a ued, “We all know the interna-
through complicit involvement Olympic Games. The beautiful man of the preparatory commis- Iranian, and he tells how one of Austria has been a nuclear-free threat to world peace. Despite tional reputation we gained
in support of Britain, France World Peace Gate with its sion for the Comprehensive his international students in zone since 1978 when a popular bring surrounded by aggressive when former Prime Minister
and Israel against Egypt in Eternal Flame was built, and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Newcastle is Jewish. vote prevented the opening of a neighbors, Iran has 1,800 tanks, David Lange declared Aotearoa
1956.” He continues, “Had we the Seoul Peace Declaration de- Organization, in 1999. Also with its roots in the nuclear power station. which is an interesting compar- to be nuclear-free.”
joined the U.S., U.K. and claimed. “Deep in their souls, South Korea’s role in world 1980s, the Institute of Peace This is a striking contrast ison with Israel’s 3,650. Harawira might have re-
Australia in the 2003 invasion peoples on this earth regardless peace is clouded by media Studies was formally estab- with the large nations, all of Maybe small nations could minded the MPs of the story of
of Iraq, that would have been a of ideology, race or religion, stereotypes about the North- lished at Cheju National which have large armies. If tank take the lead in world peace. But another David who fought for
second occasion.” share one common goal to live in South “war.” Last June I asked, University in 2001. Then in ownership is any guide, Russia one thing seems more certain — peace — David and Goliath.

Overcoming bureaucrats Okada’s plate full

lands Naoto Kan a job
TOKYO (Reuters) — Japan’s Naoto
Kan, set to become minister for a new
National Strategy Bureau that will
set broad policy goals, has a talent for
sparring with bureaucrats that could
stand him in good stead in his key
cabinet position.
Incoming prime minister Yukio
Hatoyama’s Democratic Party, which
trounced the long-ruling Liberal
Democratic Party in last week’s elec-
tion, has promised to reduce bureau-
crats’ control over policy as a way to
reset spending priorities and cut
waste.
“What a lot of people, including the
media, don’t understand is that this
change of administration is not just a
matter of having a new government,”
Kan wrote on his website.
“There will be a fundamental
change in the way the cabinet, parlia-
ment and the bureaucracy govern.”
Kan, now 62, became Japan’s most
popular politician for a time when he
battled bureaucrats as health minis-
ter in 1996 to expose a scandal over
HIV-tainted blood products.
Then serving in an LDP-led coali-
tion cabinet, he forced officials to hand
over files about untreated blood prod-
ucts that had infected nearly 1,500
hemophiliacs with HIV in the 1980s.
That resulted in apologies and com-
pensation for the surviving victims
and convictions for several people in-
volved, including a former senior
health ministry official.
In an interview with Reuters in
January, Kan said employment was
the most immediate problem facing
Japan. Unemployment hit a record
high of 5.7 percent in July after a
massive drop in exports, and Kan said
the safety net must be improved.
But some doubt whether he will
prove able to work with the bureau-
crats he has a history of battling.
“All he has ever done with the bu-
reaucrats is fight them,” said political
commentator Minoru Morita. “The
danger with Kan in this post is that
the bureaucrats will simply stop
working for fear of being attacked, so
nothing will move forward,” he added.
A founding member of the
Democratic Party, Kan is one of the
few party leaders whose roots do not
lie in the conservative LDP. A former
grassroots activist, he entered politics
in a small leftist party.
Known as a sharp debater with a
short temper, Kan has served two
terms as party leader, both of which
ended in embarrassment, but he has
remained one of the Democrats’ lead-
ing figures.
In 1999 he lost a party leadership
race after reports, which he denied, of
an affair with a television announcer.
In 2004, he was forced to step down
after confessing that he had failed to
Naoto Kan Reuters-Yonhap News
pay some contributions into the public
pension system, just as he and other
Democratic Party lawmakers were at-
tacking members of the government
for similar lapses.
Seeking to atone for his mistakes,
Kan shaved his head and donned a
Buddhist monk’s attire for a tradition-
al pilgrimage to temples on the south-
ern island of Shikoku.
An activist from his student days,
Kan successfully campaigned in 1974
to get Fusae Ichikawa, a feminist icon
who helped Japanese women gain the
vote, elected to parliament’s upper
house.
Kan was a patent lawyer before
winning a seat in parliament. He is
married with two sons, one of whom is
a political activist.
Kan’s hobbies include the strategic
board game of Go.
as foreign minister
TOKYO (Reuters) — A serious poli-
cy maven with a bit of a stubborn
streak, Japan’s next foreign minister
faces a challenge of managing ties
with Washington given the incoming
government wants a more equal rela-
tionship with its closest ally.
Katsuya Okada, 56, has already had
a taste of diplomacy when he sought to
reassure Washington as the
Democratic Party of Japan’s No. 2 exec-
utive that there would be no major shift
in bilateral ties if the party took power.
The Democrats trounced the
Liberal Democratic Party, which had
put the U.S.-Japan alliance at the
core of its security policies during its
more than half-century of rule.
“First, we should create a relation-
ship of trust between the leaders of
the two countries, then set bilateral
priorities, including on global issues
such as global warming and poverty,
and discuss in what order to try to re-
solve them,” Okada told Reuters in
the run-up to the Aug. 30 election.
The new ruling party has said it
wants to reexamine a pact governing
U.S. military forces in Japan and a
deal on redeploying U.S. troops under
which about 8,000 Marines would
leave for the U.S. territory of Guam
and a Marine air base would be shift-
ed to a less populated part of the
southern island of Okinawa.
Incoming premier Yukio Hatoyama
has also said he plans to end a naval
mission in support of U.S.-led opera-
tions in Afghanistan when a legal
mandate expires in January, although
Okada had earlier appeared to leave
the door open to a possible extension.
Okada’s appointment to the top
diplomatic post is likely to be wel-
comed by China and South Korea, giv-
en his position that Tokyo should
come to grips with its wartime history.
“First, Japan itself must properly assess
the fact that it embarked on that wretched,
foolish war,” Okada told Reuters in the in-
terview before the election.
“In that sense, our position is quite
different from that of successive LDP
governments.”
Okada has taken the lead on the
Democrats’ climate change policies,
pushing for an ambitious mid-term
target to cut Japan’s greenhouse gas
emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from
1990 levels, far tougher than the out-
going government’s plan.
Okada, who began his political ca-
reer in the LDP but bolted along with
other reformers in 1993, took over as
Democratic Party leader in 2004.
He parlayed his image as an earnest
man of principle into a robust showing
for the party in an upper house elec-
tion. But he resigned in 2005 after
popular premier Junichiro Koizumi
Katsuya Okada Reuters-Yonhap News
led the LDP to a huge election victory
with fiery pledges of reform.
After beating Okada in a
Democratic Party leadership race in
May, Hatoyama asked his rival to be
party secretary-general, but last week
said veteran lawmaker Ichiro Ozawa
would take that job.
The square-jawed Okada was more
popular than Hatoyama among ordi-
nary voters ahead of the party leader-
ship race, but has been criticized for
sticking to principles at the cost of
flexibility.
“It is important to be flexible ... but
there are some things on which a
politician can’t compromise,” Okada
said at the time.
Okada is the son of a supermarket
magnate and a former trade official.
He studied at Harvard University in
the mid-1980s.