SDF overseas activities guided by newly-established Defense Ministry are unconstitutional: JCP Ichida

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SDF overseas activities guided by newly-established Defense Ministry are unconstitutional: JCP Ichida

On January 9, the Defense Agency was upgraded to a Defense Ministry that can directly submit budget requests to the Finance Ministry and request to hold cabinet meetings on legislative and other important issues without the prime minister's approval.

At a press conference on the same day, Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi criticized the inclusion of Self-Defense Forces' overseas activities into their primary mission that accompanied the upgrading of the agency, stating, "Such activities can never be constitutionally allowed."

Ichida went on to say, "The change into a ministry is intended to openly legitimize SDF's overseas activities that have already been carried out repeatedly."

Ichida criticized Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for describing the Defense Ministry inauguration as a "departure from the post-war regime." "Abe's remarks showed he has no hesitation in denying Japan's post-war history in which the Constitution was adopted based on a remorse over the past war of aggression," Ichida said.

Ichida emphasized that this is an extremely dangerous move made in conjunction with Abe's declaration of his willingness to revise the Constitution during his tenure, to make a revision of the Constitution a point of issue in the Upper House election, and to reinterpret the Constitution in order to enable Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense.

Pointing out that a move to enact a permanent law for dispatching the SDF abroad is also taking place in the same background, Ichida said, "The JCP takes this question very seriously and will confront the government about it in the Ordinary Session of the Diet."
- Akahata, January 10, 2007