Japan Press Weekly

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2009 March 11 - 17 [SDF]

JCP raps SDF deployment to Somalia for breaking with the Constitution

The Japanese Communist Party has criticized the government order issued on March 13 based on the SDF Law to the Maritime Self-Defense Force to go into anti-piracy action in waters off Somalia for trampling on the Japanese Constitution.

The government, in addition, submitted to the House of Representatives a bill to enable the MSDF to resort to the use of arms there.

It is the first time for the SDF to be sent out to waters outside areas surrounding Japan for battle action.

In the wake of the deployment, with about 400 crewmembers and eight Japanese coast guard personnel as judicial police officers on board, two MSDF escort vessels, Sazanami and Samidare, will leave the MSDF Kure Base (Hiroshima Pref.) on March 14 for the waters in question.

Soon after the issuance of the call-out for deployment, JCP Akamine Seiken during the Lower House Security Committee meeting criticized the dispatch of the MSDF for trampling on the Constitution, and protested that the government had not explained this adequately in advance to the Diet.

Major causes of piracy acts there, Akamine pointed out, are the civil war in Somalia, illegal fishing operations of foreign boats, and a growing number of jobless fishermen because of toxic wastes from foreigner-owned factories. The pirates there have recently become organized in piracy operations, Akamine added.

He demanded that the government play an active role in enhancing Somali people’s livelihoods, and not by sending troops there.

Meanwhile, at a press conference, JCP Diet Policy Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji told the reporters that the government is using anti-piracy missions as an excuse to dispatch its troops outside Japan, and that if this ploy works the government will be able to send them at anytime to anywhere in the world.

Although it is important to make efforts to restore security in civil war-stricken Somalia, the Japanese government knows almost nothing about the background behind the increase in pirates in the waters around Somalia, Kokuta pointed out.

He said, “What is needed now is international cooperation and policing. To this end, Japan should provide financial and technological support, and make diplomatic efforts to help settle the civil war and address the issue of poverty in the region.”