| Tokyo quake drill sets off alarm bells
Over 7,000 troops take part in this year's anti-earthquake
drills, but critics say it is just a rehearsal for suppressing future
public disturbances
 |
| Tokyo
firefighters use an electric cutter to open a vehicle door as
part of yesterday's quake drills. -- AP |
TOKYO -- A record 7,100 Japanese troops took part in annual anti-earthquake
drills in Tokyo yesterday, a show of force seen by critics as an
unprecedented rehearsal for mobilisation against public disturbances.
Anti-tank helicopters hovered overhead and armoured cars
chugged along Tokyo's showcase Ginza boulevard as it was
closed for one hour, with unarmed but camouflaged soldiers
clearing obstacles to traffic.
The drills were held at 10 sites involving 25,000 people, 1,100
vehicles, 115 helicopters and 22 boats from air, sea, ground
forces as well as the metropolitan police and fire departments,
officials said.
Only 500 soldiers took part last year in the drills, timed to mark
the anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, which
killed 140,000 people in and around Tokyo.
But the large military presence in this year's exercise was
criticised in Japan, where many people are wary of signs of
militarism.
A union of groups opposed to the exercise held protests yesterday
and said the drill was just a thinly veiled pretext for a military
exercise.
Left-wing and liberal groups demonstrated at several places in
Tokyo to denounce the drills as a rehearsal for suppression of
civil disturbances by Japan's armed forces.
Japan's post-war Constitution renounces war and bans the use of
force in settling disputes, but it has been interpreted widely to
mean that Japan can have strictly defensive armed forces.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara stirred controversy when he
said the Self-Defence Forces should conduct public security
activities ""in the event of an earthquake disaster as disturbances
by illegal immigrants can be assumed''.
The outspoken governor, whose nationalistic views have agitated
both the United States and China, told crowds at a riverside drill
site: ""Leftist fools protested against the drills, but they were
sneered at by citizens.''
The drills, dubbed Rescue Tokyo 2000: Save the Capital, were
conducted on the assumption that a major earthquake with a
magnitude of 7.2 had occurred just beneath Tokyo, killing 7,000
and injuring 150,000.
In such a scenario, more than half a million buildings would burn
or collapse, inflicting damage worth hundreds of billions of
dollars. World financial markets could also be rocked if trading
in Tokyo crashed to a halt.
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, clad in disaster worker's uniform,
took a helicopter ride from his official residence to the Defence
Agency building and set up an emergency government
headquarters in its basement.--AFP, AP
 
| 
