March 20, 2003
The Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs
On March 20, 2003, the Bush administration started an unlawful armed attack against Iraq. This attack is the crudest violation of the UN Charter that prohibits armed aggression against the sovereign states. The Bush administration must bear full responsibility for its act of trampling international justice and destroying the UN-centered international effort to resolve the Iraq problem by peaceful means. We strongly condemn this barbarous act and demand the US and the UK Governments to stop the military action immediately and withdraw all their forces from the Iraq territories. Given that the deployment and actual use of nuclear weapons, particularly the so-called low yield nuclear weapons, are a real danger, we demand that all nuclear weapons deployed the US in the Middle East or on the Indian Ocean should immediately be withdrawn.
We also strongly denounce the Koizumi Government for its support for the use of force by the US, which it has continued to render until now. This position of Koizumi is a violation of the Japanese Constitution proclaiming the renunciation of the use or threat of use of force as means to resolve international conflict. It also betrays the desire of the overwhelming majority of Japanese people for a peaceful resolution of the issue. We demand that the Koizumi Government withdraw its support for the unlawful military action of the Bush administration, and that it should withdraw all the Japanese warships engaged now in military operation in support of US forces in the Indian Ocean.
The present act of the Bush administration endangers both the UN system and its Charter, the mechanism to ensure the survival and security of the human race. We call on all UN member states governments to take every possible measure to stop the war and restore the effort to resolve the problem in the hand of the United Nations. We also call on the citizens in Japan and the rest of the world to join in action to end the war and restore peace, and move together toward a world free of war and free of nuclear weapo.