TOKYO: Fears are growing that Maritime Self-Defense Force troops will easily be sent abroad from now on without the government obtaining parliamentary consent.

On Friday, the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave the go-ahead for the dispatch of an MSDF destroyer and patrol aircraft to the Middle East to strengthen information-gathering to ensure Japanese commercial vessels' safe navigation. In the mission, deployed SDF members are to protect those ships when needed and may have to use weapons.

The government was supposed to introduce special legislation to the Diet, Japan's parliament, and have it enacted to materialize the dangerous mission.

But it instead decided to base the MSDF dispatch to the Gulf of Oman and the Gulf of Aden on an existing clause of the Defense Ministry establishment law giving the ministry discretion to conduct research and study necessary for carrying out its clerical work.    The government, thus, has deprived the Diet of an opportunity to perform its checking function.

The clause has already allowed the government to freely use SDF troops at the defense minister's order and also provided legal grounds for their routine vigilance and surveillance activities in waters around Japan.

The government should take the blame for stretching the interpretation of "research and study" to use the clause to put the proposed mission in the tense region into operation, pundits said.

It will not be the first time for Japan to send SDF troops abroad on the pretext of research and study.

SDF destroyers conducted information gathering in the Indian Ocean before Japan provided logistical support to US-led antiterror operations after the 2001 terror attacks on US soil. But the ships were sent after special legislation was enacted.

Other worrisome points in the upcoming MSDF dispatch are that the government can order the troops to switch to maritime security operations to protect commercial vessels with a cabinet decision and that the Diet will only receive reports of their activities, critics said.

This makes it possible for the prime minister's office to operate armed forces abroad at its discretion, potentially a serious problem in terms of civilian control and information disclosure, they warned.

JIJI Press