Bad News from Japan

Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. NOTE: Thanks to Rick Davis for this. -- kl, pp

Koizumi Wins Support for Military Boost

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2679716,00.html

Thursday May 15, 2003 5:49 PM

By GARY SCHAEFER Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) - Gaining steam from the North Korean nuclear crisis, Japan's government won broad approval from lawmakers Thursday for a package of bills that expand the powers of the prime minister and armed forces in the event of an attack.

The three bills, introduced a year ago, have been the subject of intense debate in a country whose defeat in World War II has left a deep suspicion of the military. Critics have argued that the proposed legislation jeopardizes civil rights and violates the spirit of Japan's war-renouncing constitution.

But those objections weren't strong enough to overcome the mounting concern about threats to Japan's security. The package was approved overwhelmingly by lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament, where the country's largest opposition party sided with Japan's three-party ruling coalition in an exceptional show of unity.

"We've come a long way,'' said Takenori Kanzaki, leader of the Komeito, one of the three ruling parties. "With 9-11 and the North Korean situation, public opinion has finally recognized the need for a legal framework to respond to an attack on this country.''

The vote was a major political victory for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and paved the way for the bills to be passed into law by the less powerful upper house before the current session ends next month.

"I wanted to get the support of as many parties as possible and that's what happened,'' said Koizumi, who has made broadening the mandate of Japan's Self-Defense Forces a priority since he took office two years ago.

Socialist and communist lawmakers, who occupy just 38 of the 480 seats in the lower house, were isolated in opposition during a standing vote.

The bills give the prime minister and his Cabinet greater control over local governments and strategically important institutions in times of war. They also define emergency procedures by which the military could use private property and order the stockpiling of resources.

For decades Japan has been studying legal measures to mobilize its armed forces should the country come under attack---or face imminent attack---from abroad. The idea was virulently opposed by opposition parties as planning for war.

Koizumi was finally able to build a political consensus because of rising public perceptions that Japan's security is increasingly at risk in a world of rogue states and terrorist plots, observers said.

"People used to think Japan had no real enemies in the world,'' said Tomoaki Iwai, a professor of politics at Tokiwa University. "Now the perception is that there's a terrorist state next door.''

The country was shaken when North Korea admitted last year it kidnapped a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in the Japanese language.

That revelation came on top of mounting concern about the isolated communist nation's missile and nuclear programs.

In 1998 North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan's main island, demonstrating that most of the archipelago was within the range of North Korean warheads.

Opponents say the bills are dangerously vague, could lead to abuses of power and run counter to the strictly defensive military policy Japan has pursued since World War II.

"They overturn the peaceful principles that are the foundation of this nation,'' said Takako Doi, leader of the Social Democratic Party. "I felt a chill run down my spine as I watched the voting.''

Even supporters of the legislation have complained that it doesn't address terrorist attacks or other unconventional threats.

In a concession, Koizumi's ruling coalition agreed this week to add safeguards for civil rights and a provision calling for the government to study the establishment of a new crisis-management agency.