“Pacifist” Japan to send troops to Iraq
There was another major tremor yesterday in Japan, aside from the series of quakes which rocked Miyage prefecture.
This one was of political proportions for the Japanese Parliament finally approved deployment of troops to Iraq to help with reconstruction.
When the bill becomes law, 1,000 Self-Defence Force (SDF) personnel could be dispatched into a conflict.
Japanese soldiers could join the US-led army in military conflict elsewhere in the world.
Amid scenes of vociferous opposition, the Upper House of Parliament voted in the early hours to back Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s plans.
The Upper House approved the bill with 136 votes in favour and 102 against. Fighting took place as politicians surrounded the committee chairman to protest their case.
Japan’s military personnel last saw action in another country in 1945 at the end of World War Two.
And that is why there was so much opposition to the plan to send the SDF to Iraq.
Many claimed the move would conflict with Japan’s pacifist Constitution.
Despite four opposition parties – Japanese Communist Party, the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party – collectively sending a no-confidence motion in the Lower House against Mr Koizumi’s government, the ruling coalition prevailed.
Opinion polls suggest more than half of the country is opposed to the plan.
Koizumi’s government says SDF troops will aid the resettlement of refugees, rebuild facilities and provide fresh water and supplies; activities which fall into “non-combat areas.”
