Japan is under increasing pressure to choose between punishing Myanmar’s military over its coup last year or allowing it to continue joining a training program touted as strengthening Tokyo’s diplomatic and security relations.

Members of Human Rights Watch, an international organization, have criticized the Defense Ministry for allowing Myanmar military personnel to join the Japanese education and training program after its coup in the Southeast Asian country in February last year.

Teppei Kasai, 30, a Human Rights Watch official, said the ministry’s program “leads to bolstering the military’s violence” and “tramples on the sentiments of people in Myanmar.”

However, one official of the Self-Defense Forces said, “The (Myanmar) military’s action is egregious, but the personal relationships (developed through the program) are valuable.”

Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said at a Jan. 28 news conference that the ministry has yet to decide if it will accept personnel from Myanmar in the new fiscal year, which starts in April.

“We will respond properly,” Kishi said.

Under the Self-Defense Forces Law, the Defense Ministry has accepted military personnel from 36 countries on consignment to provide education and training.

The ministry has explained that the program is designed to allow foreign personnel “to understand the SDF under civilian control and utilize that understanding in their own countries.”

Myanmar has been included in the program because it occupies a critical position for Japan on the border of both China and India.

The ministry has accepted 30 Myanmar military personnel in their 20s and 30s since the country joined the program in 2015.

In fiscal 2020, personnel from 15 countries, including Myanmar, attended the program.

Currently, 10 people from Myanmar are participating in the program, including two senior officials and two elite candidates accepted after military coup in February 2021.

Human Rights Watch in December 2021 released a statement urging the Japanese government to break ties with the Myanmar military and to immediately suspend the study abroad program.

If the ministry continues to accept Myanmar personnel, it would effectively “support a military that has killed many citizens,” the statement said.

It also noted that Australia suspended cooperation with the Myanmar military in March 2021.

Kasai said the coup is not the only offense committed by the military. He noted that the Myanmar military’s crackdown in 2017 against the Muslim minority Rohingya was criticized around the world.

“Considering the history of the military’s human rights violations, hoping that educating several senior officials will bring about change is unrealistic,” Kasai said.

EXEMPT FROM TUITION PAYMENTS

Under the ministry’s program, senior officials receive practical education on security for several months to a year. Elite candidates receive basic education and training, including live ammunition drills, over a five-year period.

The National Institute for Defense Studies, the SDF’s Command and Staff College and others have taken in 17 senior officials of the Myanmar military, while the National Defense Academy has accepted 13 elite candidates.

The law allows the ministry to collect tuition from them and to pay benefits to them. But since Myanmar is considered a developing country, its personnel have been exempted from paying the annual tuition of 552,000 yen ($4,788).

The ministry has paid 144,000 yen to senior officials from Myanmar and 83,000 yen to elite candidates in monthly benefits. As of April 2021, a total of about 58 million yen had been earmarked as benefits to military personnel from Myanmar.

The ministry’s Human Resources Development Division said the program assumes senior officials and others from Myanmar will build personal relationships and change the military from within after they return home from Japan.

But the department said it does not know what positions these personnel have assumed or will assume after returning to Myanmar.

The Japanese government strongly criticized the coup.

In March, Koji Yamazaki, chief of staff of the SDF, issued a joint statement with the heads of militaries of 11 countries to condemn the “violent act.”

To avoid enhancing the military’s capabilities, the Defense Ministry suspended its support program of dispatching SDF members to Myanmar to provide training in medicine and meteorology and to promote a Japanese-language program.

But the ministry has continued to take in military students and support the development of instructors from the country.

“It is not wise to cut off all routes that we have built so far,” said a Japanese government source. The program “leads to developing pro-Japan personnel, too.”

Hiromi Tanaka, a professor emeritus at the National Defense Academy, said that Myanmar is strongly tied with China,” and the Defense Ministry probably wants Myanmar to increasingly take Japan into consideration, even if slightly.

Koji Miyake, a professor emeritus at Mukogawa Women’s University who heads an educational exchange foundation between Japan and Myanmar, said the ministry “should place ultimate priority on the people of Myanmar now,” and the Japanese government should “place top priority on thinking about how it will be involved in the process of democratization in Myanmar.”