950829

Japan to send on

peacekeepers to

Golan Heights

TOKYO: Japan formally decided to take part in a U.N. peacekeeping operation in the Golan Heights on Tuesday, the first dispatch of Japanese troops to the Middle East, a government spokesman said.

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama endorsed the plan to relieve a Canadian transport unit stationed in the Golan Heights for two years starting next February, government spokesman Koken Nosaka said.

"We are ready to fulfil our responsibility in headquarters and transport duties," Nosaka said.

After months of discussion, Murayama's Socialist party approved the plan last week on condition that Japanese troops would be limited strictly to a non-combat role within the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).

Other conditions included a contingency plan for Tokyo to order a pullout directly should a shooting war develop, without consultations with UNDOF. The unit of about 50 men will carry only pistols.

It would be Japan's fourth participation in U.N. peacekeeping and refugee aid operations after Cambodia in 1992-1993, in Mozambique in 1993 and in Zaire for Rwandan refugees last year.

It would be the first time for Japan to send troops to the Middle East. Before the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Japan was under heavy pressure to send a token force to join the U.S.-led allies but refused because there was no legal provision for deployment of troops overseas.

Japan was criticised heavily for the no-show and ended up paying a $13 billion dollar "contribution" and sending a flotilla of minesweepers after the ceasefire, but the moves did not impress the allies.

The government at the time immediately began preparations to push through a law that would at least open the way for Japan to send troops in the peacekeeping role under the U.N. The Peacekeeping Operations Act became law in June 1992 despite severe opposition from the pacifist Socialists.

Murayama's Socialists are now in a coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which pushed through that legislation.

The pacifist 1947 constitution, however, bans the use of the military to settle international disputes, which meant that Japan's Self-Defence Forces could not perform combat roles.

The government will send an expert study team to the Golan Heights in October before deciding on the details of the plan, Nosaka said.-Reuter