U.S. forces' atrocities must be eliminated: JCP Ichida

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi has denounced the torture and ill-treatment of Iraq's prisoners of war by U.S. military personnel as violating international humanitarian law. He stressed that it can never be condoned.

Speaking to the press on May 10 in the Diet Building, Ichida pointed out that these atrocities revealed the true nature of the occupation forces which first committed the war of aggression and are continuing with Iraq's occupation.

Ichida argued, "What they did was in violation of international humanitarian law, in particular, the Geneva Conventions."

"Now that their actions were reportedly organizational ones, the Japanese government is responsible for the ill-advised dispatching and deploying of Self-Defense Forces units to Iraq since that amounts to siding with the U.S. forces in conducting such cruelty," Ichida warned.

He concluded, "The government can no longer be allowed to explain that the SDF units are sent for humanitarian assistance in Iraq. Instead, Japan should work to help the Iraqi people restore their sovereignty and build Iraq's self-reliant reconstruction. The occupation forces and the SDF must immediately withdraw from Iraq." (end)