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Stop the Japanese Army
participating in the war in Iraq! Comrades! Denounce the Koizumi government! The government is sending main units of the Ground Self-Defence Force contingent to Iraq. Following the first batch of 90 members sent on February 3rd, over 400 members are now prepared to depart from Asahikawa base successively from next weekend over to March. Stop the government enforcing the dispatch despite the strong opposition of the people! Let us do our utmost to stop this outrage! Now in Iraq, Islamic guerrilla fighters, together with Shiite masses, are burning their angers against the occupation, making furious attacks not only on US forces but also on other forces of the 'coalition'. Without fail, the Japanese Army in Iraq will badly come under attacks from militant Iraqi people. In great fear for this, the Japanese government has ordered its Army to take aggressive weapons including recoilless guns for the first time. Thus the government is incorporating the Japanese troops into the US-led coalition forces carrying out bloody anti-guerrilla operations. Koizumi decided it with his retreat cut off by that intimidation from Bush (the deliberate murder of Japanese diplomats in Tikrit). Under the mounting pressures from the government, the obedient Japanese media is circulating, day and night, shameless flatteries to the advance SDF unit in Samawah. Amid a flood of one-sided reports, Japanese people are being manipulated to support 'our troops'. In Asahikawa, home to the GSDF contingent, the 'Yellow Handkerchief Campaign' is organized by former SDF members and local bosses 'to wish for their safety'. Streets in the snow-draped town are decorated with yellow strips. We must sound the alarm against such a neo-fascistic movement spreading under a popular cover. For repressing an upsurge of struggles against the dispatch, the Koizumi government is tightening the security of US facilities, SDF bases and foreign embassies, stressing the need 'to guard against terror'. The whole country is now under a wartime order. 'You are not going to war' \ with this deceptive statement Koizumi justified the dispatch. This means he destroyed the war-renouncing Constitution of Japan in practice, in actuality, leaving its wording untouched. On top of this, for an explicit revision of the Constitution, the Koizumi government is planning to pass a law for the national referendum through the current Diet sessions. To found a basis for a Constitutional revision \ this is another intention of Koizumi in deciding the dispatch. Denounce the Koizumi government ambitious to revise the Constitution for building 'a nation that can wage war'! Oppose the military occupation of Iraq by US imperialism! Recently, before the holly Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Islamic fighters and militias from the former Saddam forces carried out successive attacks against not only bases and convoys of US forces but also facilities of the CPA, the CPA-led Iraqi Police, the Dutch embassy and a pro-American Kurdish party. Despite the arrest of Saddam Hussein, guerrilla attacks on US forces and their allies are not ceasing but rather intensifying. With the number of deaths of US soldiers rising, the Bush administration has plunged into a situation similar to the last days of the Vietnam War. Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Shistani, stated on January 9th that another 1920 Iraqi revolution would occur if no direct elections should be realized. According to his statement Shiite people rose in massive demonstrations across the country, including a 100,000-strong one in Basra. (On February 5th gunshots were attempted against the Ayatollah in Najaf. The perpetrator of this incident must be connected to the US government, who are cornered by the massive Shiite struggles.) Faced with the bankruptcy of its 'Iraqification' plan to form a puppet government of US cat's-paws through indirect elections, the Bush administration has been forced to postpone a 'shift of sovereignty' currently planned for June. On top of this, the departing leader of a US team searching Iraqi weapons, David Kay, concluded that no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq. Power holders of France and Germany still hold their position that they would send no troops before the shift of sovereignty to the Iraqi people. The US government is now under a dead impasse. Bush can do nothing but continue crazy guerrilla hunts desperately, justifying them with fanatic fundamentalist agitations, 'God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom', or 'We understand our special calling'. This only shows the death agony of the militarist empire of America. Denounce the DPJ advocating a Constitutional revision! Denounce the JCP central leaders joining in the 'anti-terrorism' chorus! We call on the people to fight to stop the dispatch of the Japanese Army to reinforce the US-UK forces of occupation! A massive demonstration is called for February 13th by transport-related trade unions in Tokyo, following a mass rally in Sapporo on February 7th with 3000 participants. Now is the time to advance massive joint struggles of trade unions and other groups against the dispatch of troops to Iraq. 'Opposition' by Naoto Kan's leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan, however, by no means opposition; it's just a formal disagreement about legal ambiguities from the point of view that the Japanese troops should be dispatched 'as part of UN forces'. Party's head Kan recently asked the prime minister from the platform of the parliament: If you cannot maintain Japan's safety without the dispatch of SDF troops to Iraq, you must revise the Constitution in advance. We denounce the DPJ distorting the people's movement against the troop dispatch in the direction of supporting a revision of the Constitution! The central leadership of the Japanese Communist Party just proposes 'a better alternative' to the government, saying that the government must do more diplomatic efforts 'to replace the US-led occupation with a UN-based reconstruction assistance'. It is, however, nonsensical to propose such an 'alternative' for 'non-military contribution' within the framework of 'reconstruction assistance', which is stressed by Koizumi for justifying the dispatch. The party is against the dispatch only because 'it can help terrorist forces take root in the masses'. The party has basically accepted the need of 'war on terror', just covering it up with a 'UN-based framework'. Now the JCP is stressing the need of 'Iraqi reconstruction' from a standpoint no different to that of power holders, far aloof from Iraqi people who are fighting to kick out US forces as aggressors. Stop the dispatch of the Japanese Army to Iraq in solidarity with fighting Muslim people! Comrades! Denounce the DPJ advocating a Constitutional revision! Denounce the central leadership of the JCP joining in the 'anti-terrorism' chorus! Fight in solidarity with Muslim people fighting against the occupation by US imperialist forces! Advance struggles against the dispatch of Japanese troops in the direction against the US-Japan military alliance! Zengakuren carried out a militant demonstration in Asahikawa in unity with workers in the Antiwar Youth Committee to smash a departure ceremony of the main GSDF contingent on February 1st. At the very moment when the government was conducting the ceremony inside the GSDF base, militant workers and students were pressing against the gate of the base, shouting a slogan: Stop the Japanese Army leaving for Iraq! On February 3rd militant students were protesting the departure of the first batch of the contingent from Chitose base. Comrades! Following the previous fights, let us strengthen our line of struggle with more workers and students to stop the main contingent! On February 15th, meet in Asahikawa to march on the GSDF base from which the Japanese Army is ordered to depart for Iraq! Fight together! |
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