Tokyo Announces Extra $9 Billion to Aid Allied Force : Japan: Over opposition protests, government also plans to supply military aircraft to transport refugees.

Japan announced today that it will add $9 billion to its support of the U.S.-led multinational forces in the Middle East and supply military cargo aircraft to transport refugees.

Tadamori Oshima, deputy chief Cabinet secretary, said Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu and leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party made the decision in a meeting this morning. The Cabinet is to meet later today to approve details of the plan, including what legislation will be needed to raise the funds through additional taxes.

It is the largest single overseas commitment Japan has ever made and would mark the first time since World War II that Japan dispatched military forces overseas.

All but one of Japan’s four main opposition parties immediately condemned both of the decisions as violations of Japan’s constitution, which has been interpreted as banning participation in overseas conflicts.

“Our assistance to activities to restore peace (in the Middle East) ultimately will become a burden for the people,” Kaifu said at a convention of the ruling party. “But, by gathering the power of all of us, this will be the price paid for the sake of international peace by those of those who live in peace every day.”

It was not immediately clear how the government would assure the United States that it could count upon receiving the aid. Revision of tax laws to produce the needed revenue will require the approval of both houses of Parliament, and Kaifu’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lacks a majority in the upper house.

The government was reported planning to make the total payment by March 31.

Also unclear was what, if any, restrictions might be placed on use of the aid. When Japan last Sept. 14 raised its aid pledge to the U.S.-led multinational forces to $2 billion, the government said the funds should be used for non-lethal purposes.

Kaifu had said he would go on television Wednesday night and explain the new aid program to the Japanese people, but disagreements between the government and ruling party leaders over how to finance the pledge forced him to postpone the announcement.

The additional aid would bring the total of Japanese pledges to $13.06 billion, including $60 million in refugee aid and $2 billion in economic aid to front-line states such as Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, which suffered as a result of economic sanctions imposed against Iraq last August.

By comparison, the nation’s entire annual foreign aid program, which is the world’s largest, amounted to $9.1 billion in disbursements in 1988, the last year for which figures are available. Overseas economic aid was expected to be about $10 billion in 1990.

Until now, Japan has emphasized that its major global role would be economic, not military.

The chief points of the new aid package were decided after Finance Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto returned from New York, where he held two meetings with Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady. Although Foreign Ministry spokesman Taizo Watanabe said Japan would make its decision on its own initiative, the new aid sum was reported to match the amount that Brady requested.

Japanese media reported that the $9-billion pledge--to cover the first three months this year--represented 20% of the expected war costs through the end of March, or the same financial burden that the United States itself is assuming. The other 60% of costs that U.S. officials have estimated at $45 billion for the first three months, or $500 million a day, were to come from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other nations, such as Germany, which, like Japan, has sent no troops.

Government officials noted that the new commitment of $9 billion would amount to about 10,000 yen ($77) for every man, woman, and child in Japan’s population of 123.6 million. Advance reports of the decision brought complaints from some average Japanese.

The new aid would be Japan’s third increment. After the first announcement of $1 billion last Aug. 30, U.S. congressmen severely criticized Japan for failing to pick up its share of the burden to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Japan gets nearly 70% of its oil from the Middle East.

The decision to send five Air Self-Defense Force C-130 cargo aircraft and 200 military personnel to ferry refugees from Amman, Jordan, and Damascus, Syria, to Cairo promised to stir major controversy.

Opposition critics, led by Takako Doi, chairwoman of the Socialist Party, contend that the move would open the door to eventually sending actual combat forces overseas.

Not even for noncombat missions have Japan’s post-World War II armed forces been sent overseas to an area of conflict.

Opposition to the dispatch of military aircraft and crews, as well as to the proposed aid package, could block the enabling legislation that Kaifu said he would seek.