SDF machinery mobilized in support of LDP candidate who commanded SDF unit in Iraq

   In the House of Councilors election, the entire Self-Defense Forces are being mobilized in support of LDP proportional representation election candidate Sato Masahisa, a former SDF official who commanded the first SDF unit to be deployed to Iraq.

   Sato, who is calling for “a nation to be proud of” and “a constitution suitable to the present era,” is tasked to spearhead the building of a “fearsome nation” that the Abe LDP-Komei Party government is pursuing.

   Sato’s campaign material addressed to commanding officers describes his determination and activities, requests them to contribute money and to increase supporters, and even instructs how Sato’s given name should be written.

   Attached to the top of this circular are the seal of the commander and a unit member list to which each member is required to sign. This material is being circulated among SDF personnel as part of “regular operations.”

   Sato has already visited 200 of the 250 SDF facilities across the country to give “lectures” to SDF personnel.

   The “Association to Support Sato Masahiko” which produced the campaign material is headed by Yamamoto Takuma, chairman emeritus of Fujitsu, a leading communication instrument maker which was awarded a 44.1 billion yen contract in FY 2006 from the Defense Ministry (then Defense Agency).

   Yamamoto, a prominent pro-Yasukuni Shrine advocate in business circles, is a vice chair of the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi), a key rightist organization glorifying Japan’s past war of aggression and campaigning for adverse revision of the pacifist Constitution.

   In Sato’s association, successive Defense administrative vice-ministers and chairmen of the Joint Staff Council serve as advisors, successive Defense Agency directors general as senior advisors, former Ground SDF chief of staff who took a senior position in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as the representative secretary, and former chiefs of staff of Ground, Maritime, and Air SDFs as secretaries.

   At the association’s “vote canvassing” section, along with a former Ground SDF Middle Army commanding general, there appears the name of the GSDF Information Security unit first commanding officer who was rehired by a giant military firm, Toshiba. The Information Security unit has conducted unlawful surveillance of the public as revealed by Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo.

   Established at the association headquarters are sections, corresponding to five GSDF regional armies, to which successive commanding generals as well as former division commanders are assigned. This also applies to Maritime SDF and Air SDF.

   Thus, they have established a vote-canvassing machine involving the entire Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces.

   “By putting up Sato who is well known to the public as the former SDF unit chief sent to Iraq, the LDP is aiming at gaining the votes of 240,000 SDF personnel as well as their family members and retired SDF personnel. The LDP is also counting on 3,000 companies that range from suppliers, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to souvenir shops trading in SDF-related goods,” said a source familiar with LDP Dietmembers promoting military interests as well as the SDF.

   He continued, “Sato himself complained that his unit was sent to Iraq without adequate means to deal with the situation. So, he wants to speak for the SDF and the Defense Ministry in the Diet because both sides believe that the government should change the Constitution before sending the SDF abroad so that the SDF will be provided with enough equipment and funds to fully carry out its task.”

   Lawyer Kawaguchi Hajime, secretary general of the citizen group filing a lawsuit demanding a halt to the SDF dispatch to Iraq, pointed out the danger of Sato’s slogan, “Convey the heart of the scene to national politics.”

   “For Sato, ‘the scene’ means the battlefield in Iraq. Bringing the logic of the battlefield into the Diet means nothing other than blatantly destroying the logic of the Constitution banning the use of force abroad. We must block this Abe government scheme to allow the military to act without restraints.”

       - Akahata, July 11, 2007