The government on Dec. 20 adopted an action plan to send Ground Self-Defense Force engineers in 2012 as part of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), in which some 5,500 people from 59 countries are taking part.

This is the second peacekeeping operation mission involving the Self-Defense Forces since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power, following a PKO mission to quake-devastated Haiti in February 2010, and the ninth since the SDF's first PKO mission in Cambodia in 1992.

It is hoped that the GSDF engineers give full play to their capabilities with strict discipline to build infrastructure badly needed by South Sudan, which became Africa's 54th independent country in July, seceding from Sudan after many years of civil war.