Bartamaha (DJIBOUTI )- JAPAN is opening its first overseas army base in Djibouti, a small African state strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, to counter rising piracy in the region.
The 40-million-dollar (S$54 million) base expected to be completed by early next year will strengthen international efforts to curb hijackings and vessel attacks by hordes of gunmen from the lawless Somalia.
The Djibouti base breaks new ground for Japan, which has had no standing army since World War II and cannot wage war. It however has armed forces – the Japan Self-Defence Forces – which were formed at the end of US occupation in 1952.
‘This will be the only Japanese base outside our country and the first in Africa,’ Keizo Kitagawa, Japan’s navy force captain and coordinator of the deployment, told AFP recently. ‘We are deploying here to fight piracy and for our self-defence. Japan is a maritime nation and the increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden through which 20,000 vessels sail every year is worrying,’ Kitagawa said.
He explained that 10 per cent of the Gulf of Aden’s traffic comes from Japan and 90 percent of Japanese exports depend on the crucial sea lane that was almost overrun by the marauding pirates two years ago. ‘A camp will be built to house our personnel and material. Currently we are stationed at the American base,’ Kitagawa said.
Since 2008, an international flotilla of warships has been patrolling the Gulf of Aden in a bid to stop the hijackings. ‘The safety of the seas is therefore essential for Japan… the stability of this region will benefit Japan,’ Kitagawa added. In recent years Somali pirates have attacked or hijacked Japanese vessels traversing the key route.
–
Source:-AFP
