During the last decade Japan for most of the time topped the list of world's donor nations. Tokyo's generous aid budget also brought prestige to the country that still is seen by some of its neighbours as a potential military threat, despite the reality that Japan no longer possesses regular armed forces in real sense.

The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed significant changes in international politics. The demise and disappearance of Soviet Union paved the way for the emergence of a uni-polar world where the dominating role in international politics shifted firmly to the hands of the only existing superpower. But as the sole superpower quickly got involved in crucial issues of containing the adversaries and maintaining its leading strategic role, this left open few opportunities for other smaller nations to try their hands in mediating conflicts in backward regions.

Norway was first country to avail such opportunity and the country gradually moved out of its conventional role of a donor and started helping a number of conflict-torn backward nations finding solutions to the conflicts they are facing internally. Japan, being a much bigger donor than Norway in terms of total ODA disbursement, soon started to show special interest on the Norwegian pattern of helping the underdeveloped. As Tokyo's ODA policy was coming under serious criticism amid country's continuous economic downturn, the approach also seemed to be a lucrative one to the policy makers. Since then Japan has been involved at least in two regions of conflict where the extent of antagonism has brought much suffering to the ordinary people. But for Japan there still remain a number of stumbling blocks that had to be overcome before the country can establish itself as a peace-broker with a real neutral standing.

Throughout the long cold war period Japan firmly belonged to the Western camp. This no doubt helped the country to achieve tremendous economic success. But the price Tokyo had to pay in other term was losing its identity of neutrality. The end of the Cold War rivalry helped Japan to shred off partially the negative aspects of that earlier image and come out relatively clean in international politics. The timing also coincided with Japan taking the leading role in international development assistance initiatives with an ever-expanding budget that allowed the policy makers in Tokyo to dictate terms to the recipients. But the subsequent development in international politics has once again proved the frailty of that policy as Tokyo's standing on Iraq issue exposed its vulnerability. As Japan now getting ready to send its troops to Iraq on the pretext of helping the nation to rebuild its essential infrastructure when the country is under total control of occupied forces, the position of Japan as a neutral mediator in any negotiation in conflict regions is sure to become questionable.

The two major conflict regions in Asia that Japan got involved in the process of helping the concerned parties find a lasting solution to the problems are Sri Lanka and the Indonesian province of Aceh. As for Sri Lanka, the role of Japan is that of a supportive one as Norway for quite long had been trying to bring the fighting groups to a negotiating table. Japan lately got involved in the process as a principal donor country helping for Sri Lanka and promised lucrative financial assistance for rebuilding the shattered economy once a peace deal is reached. The two sides are still sticking to a ceasefire agreement signed more than a year ago, despite a slow and bumpy progress on major issues that divided the nation.

Aceh, on the other hand, provided Japan with a much broader opportunity to show the world the true face of Japanese government's 'peace dividend' economic aid policy. The only other outsider involved directly in the negotiating process being a non-governmental think tank based in Switzerland, the scope for Japan to exert leadership role was much wider. The government of Japan for quite some time in the past was urging the authorities in Indonesia to solve the Aceh issue in a peaceful manner through dialogue. As part of Tokyo's effort to extend all possible support for achieving that goal, the government of Japan held the preparatory conference on Peace and Reconstruction in Aceh on December 3 last year in Tokyo, and subsequently the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), an armed group aiming for independence of the province, reached an agreement and signed a peace deal in Geneva on December 9. Such early success raised hope among policymakers in Japan that Tokyo might see a real breakthrough in negotiating a final peace deal for Indonesia's troubled region during the next session of dialogue set for on May 17 and 18.

Meanwhile, as the dates for subsequent negotiations in Tokyo was fast approaching, the government of Indonesia started to take tougher standing particularly on demands of the rebels that a clause allowing the province to secede from the federal set up of Indonesia should be included in the draft final agreement that the parties were to sign. On the eve of Tokyo talks, the government of Indonesia suddenly arrested several rebel negotiators putting the whole process in jeopardy. At the same time the Indonesian armed forces, which has already earned international notoriety for its random practice of brutality and widespread violation of human rights norms in East Timor, continued all out preparation for military action in Aceh, giving clear signals that the authorities in Indonesia were not willing to give up their tough stand when delegates meet in Tokyo. As a result Tokyo talks were destined to fail even before they officially took off.

Now, as the Indonesian army is already in full-fledged action against civilian population of Aceh, the clock has probably taken a reverse move running back to late 1970s when the separatists in Aceh started the movement against what they called a repressive regime that had neglected the province in all respect. Any move to restart the failed peace talks, therefore, probably has to start again from the scratch. Whether Japan would be able to hold the key by playing its economic assistance card also remains doubtful, as it would go against Tokyo's economic interest to antagonize Jakarta. Just as was seen in the past concerning East Timor, Aceh would most likely have the similar fate the main players of regional politics either would express direct support for Jakarta, as already been reflected in Australian position on the issue, or at least keep a long silence. Aceh, after all, is rich in its oil resources and Indonesian military machine most likely would tap that resource for those who would be willing to pay in cash.