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by Ravi Ladduwahetty

Director-General/Press Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Japan Hatsuhisa Takashima captured at the Colombo Hilton by Roland Perera.

The visit of Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi to Sri Lanka from January 4 to 6 was the first visit of a Japanese Foreign Minister to Sri Lanka in sixteen years. It also showed her personal commitment to the peace process in Sri Lanka and was also an embodiment of Japanese foreign policy at this point of time.

However, due to the pressures and the limitations of the visit, it was the Director General and Press Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Hatsuhisa Takashima who was designated to address the media.

A senior journalist by profession, Takashima was born in Tokyo on September 1,1940 and graduated from the Gakushuin University with a Political Science Degree in 1963.

He entered the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) that year and was the foreign correspondent in Washington in 1974. He was promoted Foreign News Editor in 1978 and was Bureau Chief in Washington in 1982, Foreign Editor in 1988, Director General in 1991, Director General Information Relations and Policy Planning in 1992 and Chief Commentator in 1993. He was promoted Director of the United Nations

Information Centre in Tokyo in 2000. He was appointed to his present post in 2002. Here, in a wide ranging interview with the Daily News at the Colombo Hilton, he spells out the details of Japan's commitment to Sri Lanka's peace process and the provision of donor assistance and other relevant issues.

Q: What is the real significance of your Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi's visit to Sri Lanka at this point of time ?

A: This is the first visit of a Japanese Foreign Minister to Sri Lanka in sixteen years after former Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe in 1987. This visit is also an exhibition of Minister Kawaguchi's personal commitment to the consolidation of the peace process in Sri Lanka. After assuming duties as the Foreign Minister, she placed a more effective focus on Japanese foreign policy and the consolidation of International peace.

Q: When you say peace, do you mean peace only in Sri Lanka ?

A: No. It is not only limited to Sri Lanka but also to Argentina, Mindanao and Angola. I would say that the involvement of our country in Sri Lanka's peace process is the typical testing ground for Japanese foreign policy at this point of time. It is also a happy coincidence that the Norwegian Government is mediating in this process.

Japan is the single largest donor of Sri Lanka. We have coordinated with all the parties who have an interest in the culmination of the Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict and for the ushering of lasting peace.

We have decided to play a bigger role in helping Sri Lanka. We have appointed former Under Secretary to the UN and former Commander of the UN's Peace Keeping Force in Cambodia and Bosnia, Yasushi Akashi, as the accredited representative of the Japanese Government to the Sri Lanka's peace process. He has also visited both Sri Lanka's North and South. He will be returning to Sri Lanka later. Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Kawaguchi are also contemplating giving additional aid to Sri Lanka.

However we thought that this peace initiative is more important than any other previous effort. It is also necessary for Japan to personally intervene in this effort.

Q: So how would you help the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe?

A: We are not only helping the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe but also the Sri Lankan population in both the North and South and also the LTTE. Mr. Akashi has also been invited to meet the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and we are in the process of considering that invitation. We are also in consultation with the leaders of the Indian Government on the Sri Lankan peace effort.

In doing so, we are also hosting the Tokyo conference on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Sri Lanka in early June, this year. The sixth round of peace talks between the Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE will precede that in March.

Q: So, the sixth round of peace talks between the Government and the LTTE being the forerunner, will it be intrinsically important for aid related efforts?

A: The peace talks and donor meeting will be independent of each other. The last time we hosted such a donor meeting was for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan which proved to be very successful. It will also place the peace process in Afghanistan on course. After having hosted that, we believe that the donor conference for Sri Lanka will be more promising and effective hopefully. We have invited many countries as possible to participate in this conference.

Q: So, what will you be telling the Government of India ?

A: Our Foreign Minister will meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Beharee Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Yaswant Singha. Mr. Akashi will also be in India at that time before coming to Sri Lanka.

Q: What will your message to India be, in relation to Sri Lanka's peace process?

A: We will be briefing them on what we are doing and what we hope to do in the future. They will be definitely listening to what we say. We also understand that the Indian Government is fully supportive of Sri Lanka's peace process and this is the case. This is also Sri Lanka's best chance.

Q: What would you be telling to the LTTE?

A: Obviously, to stay on course.

Q: In addition to playing the role of prime mover and coordinator for international donor assistance, how would you promote the concept of peace in the current context of Sri Lanka's issue?

A: The current peace process is significant in that it is meant to get Sri Lanka back on track after two decades of conflict and war where two different ethnic groups should have lived in ethnic harmony. In order to achieve that, and to heal the wounds of war which have already left 65,000 dead, we must genuinely support this effort. We must also bring Sri Lanka back on track and the International Community has a tremendous role in Sri Lanka's peace process.

It is also important that all the ethnic communities in Sri Lanka stay on course and ensure economic growth. Also by providing economic assistance and humanitarian aid to this country, it would be Japan's joy to ensure that all Sri Lanka's citizens enjoy the peace dividends and that is something that we would encourage.We would promote Sri Lanka's peace morally, financially as much as we can. We will also provide economic assistance

However, future of Sri Lanka as a nation is in the hands of the people of Sri Lanka. Japan would be fully supportive of that process, so long as it is done democratically.

Q: Will you be extending these thoughts to the Indian leaders as well?

A: The Indian Government is, I would say, only a third party to this exercise. We are not telling them what should be done or what should not be done. We are only telling them what we are doing. We will listen to them if they have something to say. That is it.

Q: Incidentally, Sri Lanka and Japan celebrated 50 years of International relations and diplomatic ties between the two countries last year. So what are your sentiments in this regard and how do you see the growth of this friendship?

A: In order to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries there were many celebrations in Tokyo and other key cities of Japan. This was also another opportunity for the Japanese people to recognise the close relationship between our two countries.

Indeed, some Japanese newspapers specifically reported former Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene's historic speech at the San Francisco peace conference in 1951 in which he advocated a kind of clemency and also not to put a heavy burden on strife-torn Japan. We are very much grateful to that intervention of the former Sri Lankan President that tremendously assisted the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Japan. So the Government of Japan is now very happy that there is an opportunity for reciprocation after 50 years.

Q: What is Japan's attitude to development assistance to Sri Lanka and the rest of the world in the wake of massive recession at home ?

A: Yes, our economy is not doing well at the moment. We have to prune down total amount of overseas development assistance. Last year, there was a 10 per cent slash.

This year the difficulties are still there but our Government has decided not to slash assistance this year. What we are doing right now is not only to maintain the size of the ODA but we will be happy to continue with what we have. We are focusing much on what we call humanitarian assistance and security. It is not the monumental construction assistance, although there are some major projects.

But we have much closer consultation with Governments of recipient countries and NGOs and the people of this region. We give a detailed account of assistance so that the ODA will become more attractive and helpful. For instance, we have decided to give another round of humanitarian assistance to the UN's High Commission for Refugees for the displaced people to return to their homes in North and East of Sri Lanka.

Also in the Southern part, we have given assistance for the construction of four water supply schemes in the Matara district.

Q: The Tokyo Stock Exchange (NIKKEI) has plummeted 10,000 points last year. How do you see prospects for this year?

A: We are in the wake of economic recession. However, the Prime Minister is committed to a solution. He is confident that the economy will be back on track after the reforms. We will have to be patient and also accept some of the hardships. We will be coming back strongly. If not this year, very surely next year.

Q: So, will Japan continue its humanitarian assistance under these circumstances?

A: Yes.

Q: Will it be bilateral or multi-lateral?

A: The Japanese Government has a Human Security Commission which is co-chaired by the famous Cambridge University Professor and Nobel Prize Economics laureate Prof. Amartya Sen and also Madame Sadoka Ogata. They report directly to the Prime Minister of Japan and to the UN Secretary General Kofi Anan. They will be submitting a report on how to promote human security in the world. We would have more regulation in our ODA.

Q: Will there be shift in policy?

A: Only if necessary.

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