Koizumi's open call for amendments to the Constitution analyzed

The following is the gist of an Akahata reporter's analysis (Aug. 27) of the recent Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's move to instruct the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to draft a constitutional revision.

When he directed the LDP secretary general to finish drafting amendments to the Constitution by November 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi assured that this will not be on the Cabinet's agenda. Apparently, he tries to assign the Cabinet and the ruling party different roles for one purpose.

Notably, this is the first time for a prime minister to set a deadline for the LDP effort to come up with a draft revision of the Constitution. Koizumi, who has often expressed his contempt for the Constitution, is now setting out to destroy the present Constitution. His remarks could have serious consequences for Japan's future.

At the end of repeated irregular remarks...

At his first press conference as prime minister, Koizumi did not hesitate to state his view in favor of amending the Constitution. He said, "If Japan is to be allowed to exercise the right of collective self-defense, why don't we revise the Constitution?"

Later, he submitted one bill after another to enable the Self-Defense Forces to be dispatched abroad: the anti-terrorism special measures bill, the three war-contingency bills, and the bill to dispatch SDF to Iraq. In the Diet discussion of these bills, Koizumi deliberately repeated statements disregarding constitutional principles and even describing the Constitution as an obstacle. In the latest Diet session that ended in late July, he stated, "It would be desirable that the Constitution be revised some time in future."

In the Diet, the Japanese Communist Party is the only parliamentary group that expressed a critical view of these outrageous statements by the prime minister. This political situation was aptly described by the prime minister when he stated, "Even the Democratic Party recognizes the need for the Constitution to be amended, and a major newspaper has published its own draft of amendments." This clearly shows that Koizumi's call for the revision of the Constitution represents the present stage of the moves of the anti-Constitution forces led by the LDP.

Building on ten years of SDF dispatches

Former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, who is a born-again advocate of revision of the Constitution, said, "Japan's successive cabinets are divided into two groups. One is those led by Yoshida Shigeru, Ikeda Hayato, and Sato Eisaku, who put emphasis on economic policy, and the other those under Hatoyama Ichiro, Kishi Nobusuke, and Nakasone, who emphasized the importance of nationalism and governing power. I would hope that Koizumi will follow the latter group's policy."

However, after Hatoyama, who in the 1950s called for the Constitution to be revised to meet Japan's conditions, no prime minister has been as outspoken as he was on this issue. In the 1980s, Nakasone failed to set to work on revision of the Constitution. He was obliged to state, "I have no intention of having the Constitution amended during my tenure."

This makes Prime Minister Koizumi's statement extraordinary in the historical context.

Koizumi's open call for the Constitution to be amended can be seen as part of the historical attempt to create an environment making contempt for Article 9 becomes prevalent along with the demand that Japan exercise the right of collective self-defense. This began with the 1992 enactment of the law allowing the SDF to participate in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, followed by a series of laws sending the SDF abroad for various purposes.

Meanwhile, the Research Committee on the Constitution was established in 2000 in both Houses of the Diet, and an ad hoc commission for constitutional revision was established outside of the Diet in 2001 by right-wing public figures.

Serving the U.S. strategy

One must not forget that the biggest factor that has led to these moves to amend the Constitution is the view that Japan should not delay in keeping up with U.S. military strategy.

The so-called Armitage Report published by the United States in October 2000, just before Koizumi became prime minister, triggered the call for the war-contingency laws to be enacted and a policy change to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense, which has been rejected by Japan's successive governments.

Anti-Constitution moves became more explicit since the U.S. Bush administration took office with its preemptive strike strategy as a centerpiece. In late last July, a project team of the LDP Constitution Research Council published a draft of constitutional amendments concerning security affairs. Claiming that "Japan has the right of individual and collective self-defense as a means of maintaining Japan's independence and security," the draft calls for the Constitution to be rewritten to the effect that "Japan possesses force for self-defense to exercise the right of self-defense," in line with the U.S. demand.

The proposal for a constitutional revision was triggered off by Prime Minister Koizumi with the greater aim to make Japan a war-fighting nation in order to cooperate fully with U.S. lawless wars under its unilateral and preemptive strategy.

Japan does not need to have a timetable for amending the Constitution; the task now is to do all it can to preserve the U.N.-led order for world peace and strive to keep alive Japan's constitutional principles of settling international disputes without the use of military force.

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Kawamura Toshio, secretary general of the Liaison Council of Various Circles for Prevention of Mal-Revision of the Constitution:

Political parties are vying for a revised Constitution as clear from the discussions in the parliamentary Council on the Constitution. They are presenting their plans and calling for public debates on what the Constitution should be like. That was the general situation in which Prime Minister Koizumi asked the ruling Liberal Democratic Party general secretary to complete a draft of the revised Constitution by November 2005.

The Council on the Constitution is speeding up publication of its final report with the aim of helping to create an atmosphere in which public discussion look like a matter of course.

The fact is that the government's interpretation of the Constitution, which was imposed on the Diet during the discussion on the bill to send Japanese Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, is no longer tenable.

For example, the government tried to persuade the Diet into accepting the bill by explaining that the bill is constitutional because SDF units "would not go into 'combat zones'". However, parliamentary debates made the government realize that it is impossible to divide Iraq into combat zones and non-combat zones.

After winning the enactment of the war-contingency laws, the government is seeking to get further bills enacted and to establish a permanent legal arrangement that allows the SDF to be sent abroad. All these plans will certainly run counter to the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. They apparently believe that the revision of the Constitution is the only way to give constitutionality to the government plan to establish a war-fighting nation.

We must not forget that the war-renouncing Article 9 was included in the Japanese Constitution not just as a national objective of Japan; it was put forward as a goal the world should seek to achieve in order to avoid the recurrence of the tragedies the world underwent, including World War II.

Article 9 has by and large been recognized throughout the world. Broad support for it found its expression in the great opposition to the Iraq war that swept the world.

As Iraq has become a quagmire, the U.S.-British invasion and their subsequent occupation of Iraq are under even greater criticism.

Dialogue has also been started by six countries to discuss the issue of North Korea.

I think it very important for us to have greater confidence in these movements toward peace and recognize the significance of our efforts to defend Article 9. (end)