JCP calls for popular majority opposing constitutional revision: JCP on LDP draft
Ueda Koichiro, the head of the Japanese Communist Party task force on the Constitution on October 29 published the following statement on the Liberal Democratic Party's draft of a new constitution:
The LDP constitution drafting committee (chaired by former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro) on October 28 finalized a draft of a new constitution to be published in November at the LDP Congress marking the party's 50th founding anniversary.
The JCP at its 3rd Central Committee meeting revealed that the true aim of the call for constitutional revision is to turn Japan into a country capable of fighting wars abroad under U.S. command. The LDP draft indeed represents a blanket adverse constitutional revision aimed at enabling Japan to participate in wars that the United States wages based on its policy of preventive war.
This is clear from the draft's preamble and its rewriting of Article 9, the crux of the adverse revision.
The preamble of the LDP draft deletes the lofty ideals stated in the preamble of the present Constitution. The determination that 'never again shall we be visited by the horrors of war' has completely disappeared.
Renunciation of war in Article 9 paragraph one is retained, but its second paragraph stating a ban on maintaining war potential and denial of the right of belligerency was replaced by a statement that Japan will maintain a 'self-defense military.'
JCP Chair Shii Kazuo in his speech to the May 3 Constitution Day rally cited a Cabinet Legislation Bureau director-general's statement in the Diet warning that changing Article 9 will enable Japan to (1) send troops abroad; (2) exercise the right of collective self-defense; and (3) take part in U.N. military forces. The LDP draft will turn this warning into reality.
Thus, the draft calls for Japan's transformation from a war-renouncing country into a country capable of going to war anywhere in the world.
The draft's preamble stresses patriotism by stating that 'the Japanese people jointly hold an obligation to support and protect their country and society with affection, a sense of responsibility and spirit.'
Article 12 of the present Constitution is rewritten to the effect that the people shall be responsible for public interests and public order, instead of the 'public welfare' in the present Constitution. The draft is alarmingly reactionary to the extent of denying modern constitutional government.
The task now is to reveal the reactionary nature of this draft and argue against it in order to rally the majority of the people who are opposed to the Constitution from being adversely revised to take action."
-- Akahata, October 29, 2005
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