Thursday, December 25, 2008
A growing number of nations are sending navy ships to fight pirates near the lawless East African country, with Japan's neighbour and sometime rival China set to dispatch three vessels on Friday.
"Japan has to deal quickly with this issue," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, the government spokesman, told a news conference.
But Japan has legal problems with sending warships because of its pacifist post-World War II constitution. Under domestic laws, the navy can only protect ships flying the Japanese flag or carrying Japanese nationals.
"Are the current laws appropriate for a mission like this?" Kawamura said.
"The laws stipulate that, as a general rule, Japanese (military) ships can operate within our territorial waters. But is that OK when we are discussing cooperation with the international community?" he said.
Kawamura said ruling bloc lawmakers will study changes in legislation.
The Mainichi Shimbun, quoting unnamed sources, said that Prime Minister Taro Aso may announce a decision on an operation by the end of the year.
The UN Security Council has given nations a one-year mandate to act inside Somalia to stop the rampant piracy in the Gulf of Aden, part of the Suez Canal route from Europe to Asia.
Some shipping companies have chosen to travel around Africa, a longer and more expensive route, to avoid the increasingly brazen pirate attacks.
Japanese forces have not fired a shot in combat since World War II. But the country has tried to take on a larger role in international security, notably through a reconstruction mission in Iraq.
China's dispatch of two destroyers and a supply ship mark the first time in recent history that Beijing has deployed vessels on a potential combat mission well beyond its territorial waters.
Source: AFP, Dec 25, 2008