Japan Press Weekly

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2010 November 17 - 23 [SDF]

Gov’t must give up sending SDF to Afghanistan: JCP Inoue

Japanese Communist Party representative Inoue Satoshi on November 17 at a House of Councilors Budget Committee meeting urged the government to stop considering sending a Self-Defense Forces medical unit to Afghanistan because it violates the Japanese Constitution.

Prime Minister Kan Naoto during the November 13 Japan-U.S. summit talks expressed his intention to dispatch SDF medical officers to Afghanistan.

Inoue pointed out that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is recognized as a military force conducting cleanup operations against the Taliban and that an ISAF document states that dispatched SDF medical officers will give initial treatment to injured soldiers. He said, “The proposed duties of a dispatched SDF medical unit will be directly related to combat operations and are thus unconstitutional.”

The Democratic Party of Japan two years ago submitted to the Diet a bill on Afghan reconstruction aid which stated that the SDF will be dispatched to an area if the area is an area in which “no Afghan resident have s possibility of losing their lives or being harmed due to war.” The DPJ at that time found that there was no such area in Afghanistan.

Citing this fact, Inoue said, “During the first half of this year alone, 3,268 Afghan citizens were killed or injured in conflicts between foreign militaries and Taliban forces. The whole of Afghanistan is a battlefield. The situation in Afghanistan is worse than it was two years ago. Is there any rational justification for sending the SDF?”

Defense Minister Kitazawa Toshimi confusedly replied, “Dispatched SDF medical officers should be protected using legal grounds.
- Akahata, November 18, 2010