JCP Dietmembers call for immediate halt to air strikes

A four-member Japanese Communist Party team on November 6 returned home from Pakistan after a week-long investigation of damages the U.S.-led military attacks are causing to the Afghan people and the situation of Afghan refugees.

At a news conference held in the Diet Building, Ogata Yasuo, JCP member of the House of Councilors who led the JCP team, made the following four points regarding the U.S.-led "war on terrorism":

Extending humanitarian aid to Afghanistan is urgently needed

United Nations agencies and NGOs say that the next two weeks are of vital importance for helping Afghan refugees before snows fall, and that the air strikes must be stopped immediately.

Cluster bombs

The team confirmed that many cluster bombs were used in the air strikes. At a university hospital in Peshawar, the team met an 11-year-old girl and 16-year-old boy who were injured by cluster bombs.

JCP Dietmembers also visited a hospital in Quetta and questioned a wounded person who testified that cluster bombs were dropped on a residential area in Qandahar, where Taliban's military is not situated.

Recover international unity to root out terrorism

In Pakistan, public opposition to the U.S.-led war is increasing, while divisive moves are emerging which terrorist groups might take advantage of.

In the talks with a Pakistan Foreign Ministry department director, Ogata emphasized that top priority be given to establish an international unity to contain terrorist forces, to which the director agreed. In a city hosting an air field from which the air strikes are being made, bitter feeling is growing against the U.S. and in favor of Osama bin Laden, though such sentiments didn't exist before the war.

Dispatch of SDF units

An official of the Islamabad-based UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated that there is no need now for any foreign military forces to be introduced to help refugees. Japan's honorary consul in Quetta told the JCP team that if Self-Defense Forces units are sent to Pakistan, it could easily destroy friendly relations between Pakistan and Japan.

Yamasaki Taku (Liberal Democratic Party secretary general), who recently visited Pakistan and met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, told the press that the president expressed his welcome to SDF activities in Pakistan.

But, both the presidential office and foreign ministry of Pakistan have told the JCP team that they know nothing about such an SDF-related issue. Two major English newspapers in Pakistan carried photos on the Yamasaki-Musharraf talks without mentioning any details.

All this suggests that no warm welcome has been expressed by the Pakistan government toward Japan's sending of SDF units to the country. (end)