 LDP committee's constitutional draft calls for deploying new military forces anywhere in the world The Liberal Democratic Party's constitutional drafting committee on April 4 published an outline of the draft revision of the Constitution calling for Japan to maintain self-defense military forces and establish the right of collective self-defense. Akahata on April 5 reported that the LDP is seeking to allow Japan to carry out military interventions anywhere in the world. The LDP outline calls for an amendment to paragraph 2 of Article 9 (banning Japan from possessing war potential), which many LDP politicians regard as a major defect of the present Constitution. It justifies Japan's use of force abroad on the grounds that "self-defense military forces will contribute to securing international peace and stability." The outline, at the same time, left such issues as emergency situations, a basic law concerning security measures, and a basic law on international cooperation for future discussion. The outline demands that the state's objects be put into the preamble, stipulating that "Japan must consistently inhere to fight against oppression and human rights violations anywhere in the world." Concerning people's rights and duties, it claims that the present provision of "public welfare" be replaced by "public interests" or "public order" to "maintain the state's security and social order," thus suggesting that civil rights can be restricted "for the sake of the state." Regarding the "freedom of association," it calls for the need to control "associations carrying out violent and destructive activities." Akahata stated that this reintroduces the idea behind the wartime public order maintenance law and Subversive Activities Prevention Act to the Constitution. The LDP outline demands that the preamble provide that "Japan has shared its history together with the emperor." It also proposes that in Article 96, conditions on initiating constitutional amendments be eased from a "concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each House" to a "half or more." The LDP drafting committee will finish its work on the Constitution in April, and after discussing it in a new panel, publish the party's draft constitution in November. Elimination of Article 9 is their aim - Ichida Ichida Tadayoshi, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat head, criticized the LDP's constitutional amendment plan as being aimed at removing the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution and paving the way for the Japanese armed forces to wage wars outside of Japan. Ichida made this comment in answer to reporters' questions on April 4. He pointed out that the biggest problem in the LDP plan is its call for Japan to maintain its "armed forces for self-defense" on the ground that self-defense armed forces will contribute to international peace and stability. "By amending Article 9, paragraph one, the LDP intends to gut Article 9 in its entirety," he added. Referring to the LDP plan to impose additional national defense duties and burdens of social security on the people and restrict the freedoms of expression and association, Ichida said, "All this is geared to remaking Japan into a war-fighting country. It is like the prewar setup in which Japan's war of aggression and colonization was connected with the government policy of suppressing the freedoms of speech and association." "The role of a modern constitution is to control the state with the aim of ensuring that human rights are protected. To the contrary, the LDP plan seeks a set-up in which civil rights are restricted, Ichida added. (end) |