Newsletter No. 884
News-Analysis
January 26, 2008

 

SIERRA LEONE’S FOREIGN MINISTER BANGURA IN TOKYO

Press coverage was precisely nil, but a short notice and a photograph from MOFA makes it clear that Sierra Leone’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Zainab Hawa Bangura visited Tokyo this week. On the 23rd she met with Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

Photo: Komura and Bangura
Source: MOFA

The official MOFA statement states that they discussed five items as follows:

1) Komura celebrated the fact that then-Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Masayoshi Hamada visited Sierra Leone last July and the JICA officials have also been going there recently.

2) Bangura praised Japanese assistance, especially in the energy sector, and promised that President Ernest Bai Koroma would personally attend TICAD IV this May in Yokohama.

3) Komura was delighted that President Koroma would attend, and noted that cooperation in the electric energy sector would continue.

4) Komura noted that Prime Minister Fukuda aims to make Japan a “Peace Cooperation State” and thus looks forward to working together with Sierra Leone to make West Africa peaceful and stable.

5) Komura thanked Sierra Leone for its continuing support for Japan’s candidacy to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

In regard to the talk about energy cooperation, it will be noted that an agreement on Phase II of the Project for Urgent Improvement of Electric Power Supply System in Freetown was signed on the 15th between Ambassador to Ghana Masamichi Ishikawa and Mrs. Nasratha Bakie Remoe-Doherty, Charge d’Affaires of the Sierra Leonean Embassy in Ghana.

A description of this project was provided in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 694. Phase II calls for an additional US$166,000 in aid.

CELEBRATING MYOHAUNG DAY

I hope that you all had a wonderful Myohaung Day on the 24th.

Huh? You’ve never heard of it? Well, truth be told, I had never heard of it either until I saw a little article in the Awareness Times today. Turns out it’s a pretty big deal in Sierra Leone, where they held a parade attended by President Ernest Bai Koroma, Information and Communication Minister Alhaji I. B. Kargbo, and Defense Minister Palor Conteh.

What does this have to do with Japan? Everything!

You see, Myohaung is a town in Myanmar (Burma) where British forces fought against Japanese forces in January 1945. Among the British forces was the Royal Sierra Leone Regiment, which was acting as the vanguard of the 6th Infantry Brigade assaulting Japanese positions. Little did I know it, but there was a time six decades ago when young men from West Africa were fighting and killing young men from Japan. Sierra Leone lost thirty-four officers and men in the battle, and almost two hundred more were wounded. The British Army recognized the key role played by the Sierra Leonean soldiers with several military awards.

Other West African regiments from the Gambia, Gold Coast (Ghana), and Nigeria were also involved in the Burma campaigns. In total, about 167,000 West African men were sent by the British to fight the Japanese in Southeast Asia.

An article written by Norimitsu Onishi for the New York Times in April 2000 interviewed a Gambian Muslim who described his experience in the following terms:

They started to use force so the youths would go. The chief went to each compound and demanded one volunteer. When they saw you, they would just grip you and take you. We knew we were going to be forced, so we decided to join… I never knew anything about the Japanese people. In Burma, I realized these people were called the Japanese people… Many of us realized for the first time that it was a real war. There was no way out. Nobody could escape back to Africa. We had to fight. There was no day or night. We were fighting all the time… They're the same, the British, the Japanese; they were fighting all for the same thing -- sovereignty. I don't regret fighting for the colonial masters. But at the end of the day, they are all the same. They are all doing business together now.

This is an interesting and mostly-forgotten angle of Japanese relations with some countries of West Africa.