Kidnapped Japanese find different prison at home
3 return from Iraq only to go into hiding as nation blames them for own abduction.
By NORIMITSU ONISHI THE NEW YORK TIMES
TOKYO The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation?s cold stare. The first three hostages, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, first appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. They landed here Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.
"You got what you deserve! " read one handwritten sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan?s shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, said it would bill them $6,000 for airfare. Their transgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call here okami, or, literally, "what is higher."
Treated like criminals, the three former hostages have gone into hiding. The kidnapped woman, Nahoko Takato, was last seen arriving at her parents? house, looking defeated and dazed from taking tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped her walk and bow before reporters as a final apology to the nation. Dr. Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who has examined the three twice since their return, said the stress they are enduring now is "much heavier" than what they endured in Iraq. Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the former hostages told him, in ascending order: the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show after their return here and realized Japan?s anger with them.
"Let?s say the knife incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level," Saito said Thursday. "After they came back to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level ranked 12."
To the angry Japanese, the first three hostages ? Takato, 34, who started her own nonprofit organization to help Iraqi street children; Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a free-lance photographer; and Noriaki Imai, 18, a free-lance writer interested in the issue of depleted uranium munitions ? had acted selfishly. Two others kidnapped and released in a separate incident ? Junpei Yasuda, 30, a free-lance journalist, and Nobutaka Watanabe, 36, a member of an anti-war group ? were equally guilty in their countrymen?s eyes.
Pursuing individual goals by defying the government and causing trouble for Japan was simply unforgivable. But the freed hostages did get official praise from the United States. "I?m pleased that these Japanese citizens were willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a better purpose," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "And the Japanese people should be very proud that they have citizens like this willing to do that."
In contrast, Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese government?s spokesman, said, "They may have gone on their own, but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action." The criticism began almost immediately after the first three were kidnapped two weeks ago. The environment minister, Yuriko Koike, blamed them for being "reckless."
After the hostages? families asked that the government yield to the kidnappers? demand and withdraw its 550 troops from southern Iraq, they began receiving hate mail and harassing faxes and e-mail messages.
Even as the kidnappers were threatening to burn alive the three hostages, Yukio Takeuchi, a top official in the Foreign Ministry, said of the three, "When it comes to a matter of safety and life, I would like them to be aware of the basic principle of personal responsibility."
Grasping Japan?s attitude toward them, the hostages have found themselves under crushing pressure. According to Saito, Imai, the 18-year-old, registered a high blood pressure reading. Takato, who had a pulse rate of over 120 beats per minute, kept bursting into tears. When the doctor told her she had done good work in Iraq, she cried convulsively and said, "But I?ve done wrong, haven?t I?"
There are so many things about the Japanese culture that I find baffling.
