JCP to focus on Article 9 and consumption tax in extraordinary Diet session

The 157th extraordinary Diet session began on September 26 in a tense political situation making the dissolution of the House of Representatives more likely in October for a general election in November.

Speaking at the general meeting of the Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers Group on the same day, JCP Chair Shii Kazuo said, "We will raise the real election issues and discuss them before the people."

Shii said the JCP will focus on two major issues: opposition to a consumption tax rate increase and prevention of the adverse revision of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. "Prime Minister Koizumi is pushing ahead with these agenda items without revealing the true aim, but he cannot continue to deceive the people," Shii said.

On the consumption tax rate increase, Shii said, "The prime minister says there will be no consumption tax rate increase in the next three years. This should be taken as a declaration that he will spend three years to lay the groundwork for a consumption tax rate increase."

On the government intention to adversely change Article 9, Shii said, "The major problem is that the prime minister intends to set up a system for Japan to participate unrestrictedly in interventionist wars that the U.S. forces will wage throughout the world."

Referring to the proposed extension of the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law after November 1, Shii said that the JCP will demand that the law be abolished and the Self-Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean ordered to return to Japan. He said that the JCP in the Diet will argue that the retaliatory war on Afghanistan has failed to eliminate terrorism and that the law, enacted specifically to support the U.S. war on Afghanistan, was unjustly used to support the U.S. war against Iraq.

On the government plan to send SDF troops to Iraq, Shii pointed out that the lawlessness of the Iraq war has been exposed as weapons of mass destruction allegedly held by Iraq have not been discovered and because U.S. President Bush had to admit that there was no link between the Iraqi Hussein regime and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The JCP chair said that the JCP in the Diet will demand that the SDF dispatch be canceled and the law for it abolished. (end)