MATSUURA: Why Japan celebrates Self-Defense Forces for peace and stability

It is customary for Japan to celebrate its Self-Defense Forces Day, every year on the first of November, or as close to that date as possible.

This year, when I hosted a reception for the Self-Defense Forces Day here in Nairobi, on the 6th of November, it marked an important milestone for this year is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.  

For the past 80 years, Japan has walked the path of a peace-loving nation and contributed to international peace and prosperity, always holding firm in our heart the lesson of history, which we had learnt the hard way.

Japan shall never alter this course. In corollary, our Self-Defense Forces always adhere to the basic precepts of exclusive defense under the constitution and have contributed to peace and stability. This has been done through such means as Japan’s Emergency Assistance Team, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief and the UN’s Peacekeeping Operations.

In Africa, the JSDF have engaged in the UN Peacekeeping Operations in Mozambique and South Sudan, as well as emergency assistance in Rwanda and West Africa. The JSDF have also taken part in counter-piracy operations since 2009, by dispatching their escort destroyers and aircraft to the waters off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden.

But this is not all.

Locally, Japan has supported Kenya’s International Peace Support Training Centre since 2008. Japan appreciates the security challenges that Kenya and East Africa face and supports the centre's programmes that aim to address them, including courses on conflict prevention, “women, peace and security”, and maritime security.　

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the UN Triangular Partnership, a support framework initiated under Japan's leadership. Earlier this year, at the Centre’s Humanitarian Peace Support School, our Ground Self-Defense Force played its role, as it has done before.

This involved facilitation of the deployment of Peace Keeping Operations in Africa, inter alia, by providing training for the use of heavy machinery. Japan intends to continue the support through the Triangular Partnership.

Japan regards Kenya highly for its prominent role as an ‘anchor’ for the regional stability. We admire Kenya’s longstanding engagement in this regard, for which Kenya has committed very substantial diplomatic and peace-support resources, and which has led to so many remarkable achievements to date for the peace and security of the region.

Today, Kenya’s contribution goes on in such numerous conflict zones as Sudan, South Sudan, the DRC, Somalia and Haiti, just to mention a few. Japan will ceaselessly commend Kenya’s stabilising undertakings and always aspires to working with Kenya.

Notwithstanding the strenuous efforts by Japan, Kenya and many other nations to maintain it, the free and open international order, based on the rule of law, encounters unprecedented challenges in various parts of the world at this point in history.

Now is the time to strengthen the partnership between Japan and Kenya to counter the challenges. Through the promotion of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, Japan wishes to work with Kenya to advance peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

Japan cherishes the framework, “Statement of Intent on Defense Cooperation and Exchanges”, between our two countries. President Ruto and the then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan agreed on the content and signed it, during the President’s visit to Japan last year.

Under the framework, in March this year, our Maritime Self-defense Force sent its ships Bungo and Etazima for port visits to Mombasa. That was an important occasion for our bilateral defense exchanges and cooperation across land and sea domains.

This is only the beginning, and many more will come. We look forward to further strengthening the cooperation and, thus, contributing to the peace and stability of the region.

Our Self-Defense Forces are, and will continue to be, open for deepening bonds of friendship and solidarity with Kenya and many countries of the world. Because this is the way Japan promotes peace and stability of the world.

The writer is the Japanese ambassador to Kenya