Arouse opinion to block laws for Japan supporting U.S. wars -- Akahata editorial, February 26The Koizumi Cabinet has made public the contents of seven war contingency-related bills, including the people protection bill and the U.S. forces support bill.
The bills are intended to establish specific ways of supporting the U.S. forces in line with the law enacted last year to deal with possible armed attacks.
The war contingency legislation is a package of laws that allow Japan to take part in U.S. wars abroad and to force the whole of the nation to cooperate in U.S. wars.
As the government plans to submit the bills to the Diet in early March, the task now is for us to let the public know the dangerous contents of the bills and develop a movement to foil the legislation.
It's intended to mobilize the people rather than protect them
The essence of the proposed war contingency-related laws is suppression of citizens' rights, freedoms, and properties, and support for U.S. wars.
The "bill to protect the Japanese people" will authorize the government to expropriate houses and land without owners' consent, with penalty for disobedience. Far from "protecting" the people, the bill's only concern is effective mobilization of the people for war.
The bill to support the U.S. forces will provide them with land and houses, and the bill to allow the designated public facilities to be used by U.S. forces will open Japan's seaports and airports, roads, and radio waves to their exclusive use. These bills, if enacted, will transform Japan into an instrument dedicated to supporting all U.S. wars.
Other bills include one to amend the Self-Defense Forces Law to allow the SDF to provide the U.S. forces with weapons and ammunition and one that makes it possible for Japan to carry out inspections of foreign ships and even to attack them militarily in the high seas.
In the parliamentary discussion of the law on measures to deal with armed attacks, the government made it clear that anyone who refuses to obey the material custody order because he or she is opposed to a war will be punished.
Compelling people to cooperate in wars under the threat of punishment reminds us of the prewar National Mobilization Law which legally denied the people's rights and freedoms in order to drag them into Japan's war of aggression abroad.
Inspection by the SDF of foreign ships amounts to a belligerent action, which is unconstitutional.
The point is that such actions are conceived not as a necessary response to outside attacks but in case that Japan is called to assisting the U.S forces in wars. The danger is realistic.
This means that war contingency laws will be invoked even when the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are attacked or likely to be attacked during their operations in support of U.S. forces because such attacks or predicted attacks are regarded as attacks on Japan.
The SDF dispatch to Iraq by the Koizumi Cabinet testifies to the policy of dispatching the SDF to war zones abroad in order to take part in U.S. preemptive wars.
The war contingency laws are unprecedented in that they force the nation, which has the war renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, to take part in foreign wars abroad by mobilizing the Japanese people for such wars in violation of civil rights and property rights, and by penalizing non-compliance.
The Law to Respond to Armed Attacks was railroaded through the Diet by the majority force of the ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties, plus the opposition Democratic Party. It's a contemporary version of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, which existed in prewar Japan, regarding diplomacy and national security.
Prime Minister Koizumi lost no time in cosying up to the Democratic Party, saying, "It's good to hold discussion on the seven bills." He is afraid that opposition to the bills will increase if their contents are made known to the public, and is eager to prevent the recurrence of a parliamentary rejection that twice took place in the past.
Incompatible with the people's wish
The war contingency laws-related bills are incompatible with the people's wish for peace.
The bills reneges on the Constitution which, based on a remorse for the war of aggression, renounced war.
This is why such war bills are unacceptable to the Japanese people.
The outcome of the bills hinges on public opposition. (end)