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Peace Memorial Ceremony held in rain for first time in 43 years

by Kohei Okata, Staff Writer

On August 6, 69 years after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the city held the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony in Peace Memorial Park. Some 45,000 people, including A-bomb survivors and family members of the dead, were in attendance. It was the first ceremony held in the rain in 43 years. In his Peace Declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui stressed that Japan has avoided war for 69 years under the noble pacifism of the Japanese Constitution. He called on the Japanese government to persist as a nation of peace.

According to the city, this year’s ceremony and the ceremony held in 1971 have been the only ceremonies in the history of the event, including the Peace Restoration Festival held in 1946, to take place in the rain. Representatives from 68 nations and the European Union (EU) were in attendance this year. U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy visited Hiroshima and appeared at the ceremony for the first time since taking up her post.

The ceremony began at 8 a.m. Mr. Matsui and two representatives from the families of the dead placed the register of A-bomb victims in the stone chest beneath the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. Over the past year, 5,507 Hiroshima A-bomb survivors died or their deaths were newly confirmed. Three volumes have been added to the register, bringing the total number of volumes to 107. The register now contains 292,325 names. One volume lists names of Nagasaki A-bomb victims.

At 8:15, the time the atomic bomb exploded above the city, all those present offered a silent prayer while the Peace Bell was rung by Kazuki Kato, 29, a dentist, representing the victims’ families, and Ui Okano, 11, a sixth-grader at Hesaka Elementary School, representing children.

As the rain fell more heavily, Mr. Matsui read aloud the Peace Declaration. He noted the experiences of an A-bomb orphan and three people who were students who had been mobilized for the war effort at the time of the bombing. Speaking for the survivors, he said “unceasing efforts to build, not a culture of war, but a culture of peace” must be made. He then called on people around the world to “think and act together with the hibakusha for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons and without war.”

In his speech, Mr. Matsui made no direct mention of the cabinet’s approval of exercising the right to collective self-defense. He did not refer to the nation’s energy policy, either, which he incorporated in his past three speeches after the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) nuclear power plant.

The “Commitment to Peace” was read by Yuichiro Muta and Reiko Tamura, both 11 and sixth-graders at Onaga Elementary School and Ushita Elementary School, respectively. They said in unison that “many different thoughts will become a powerful driving force for peace.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has attended the ceremony for two consecutive years, stated, “Japan will firmly uphold the ‘three non-nuclear principles’ and spare no efforts in working towards the total abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of eternal world peace.”

As of the end of March, the average age of A-bomb survivors in Japan who hold the Atomic Bomb Survivor's Certificate was 79.44. The total number of survivors declined to 192,719, dropping below 200,000 for the first time since the certificate began to be issued in 1957.

(Originally published on August 7, 2014)

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