Rallies held for and against current Constitution on 62nd anniversary+

TOKYO, May 3 Kyodo -
Defenders of Japan's postwar Constitution in its present form and others
advocating its amendment held rallies across the country on Sunday, a national
holiday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of its enforcement.

At a rally in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo attended by around 4,200 people,
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Toshihide Masukawa warned of the forces driving
to change the war-renouncing supreme law.
Japan ''has gone as far as to send Self-Defense Forces vessels to waters off
Somalia on the basis of a constitutional interpretation,'' he said, referring
to the SDF's antipiracy operations off the Horn of Africa being conducted in
the name of a policing action.
''(Those calling for constitutional revision) are longing for the right of
belligerency,'' which the Constitution denies the country under Article 9, the
Kyoto Sangyo University professor emeritus said.
Meanwhile, Diet members and others advocating revisions to the Constitution
held a gathering in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, attended by around 500 people.
''Constitutional revisions are indispensable to building international peace in
the true sense of the words. The time has already ripened,'' said Yuriko Koike,
a lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a former defense
minister.
Koike went on to criticize the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, whose
members are often divided over issues related to the peace provisions of the
Constitution, saying the party would not be qualified to assume power as long
as it avoids mapping out its stance on the subject.
Article 9 states that Japan will never maintain ''land, sea and air forces, as
well as other war potential.'' Many conservatives are calling for Article 9 to
be changed to allow Japan to officially possess military forces for
self-defense.
At the pro-Constitution rally in Hibiya, writer Keiko Ochiai described how her
now-deceased mother, while watching footage from the Persian Gulf War, had
asked if she knew the smell of burned hair.
Ochiai said people must convey the bitterness of war to future generations.
Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii praised U.S. President Barack
Obama's proclamation in Prague in the Czech Republic last month to work toward
a world without nuclear weapons, saying that ''hopes for the abolition of
nuclear weapons are also contained in Article 9.''
==Kyodo