×

News

Call made by Hiroshima mayor to abandon U.S. nuclear umbrella

by Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer

On August 6, the City of Hiroshima held the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony in Peace Memorial Park in the heart of the city. This year marked the 65th year since an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima by the United States. According to the City of Hiroshima, 55,000 people including A-bomb survivors, family members of A-bomb victims, and citizens, up 5,000 from last year, attended the ceremony. Ambassador John Roos, the representative from the U.S. government, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined in prayers to console the spirits of the dead.

In response to growing international momentum for efforts to achieve nuclear abolition, the representatives from the United Kingdom and France, both nuclear weapon states, attended the ceremony for the first time. Including these nations, the largest-ever number of nations, 74 in all, sent representatives to the ceremony. In the Peace Declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba strongly called on the Japanese government to drop the U.S. nuclear umbrella and to enshrine the three non-nuclear principles into law by encouraging the government to lead the campaign for nuclear abolition.

The ceremony began at 8 a.m. with Mayor Akiba and two representatives of the victims' families consecrating the register with the 5,501 names of those who died or were newly identified during the past year to the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. The register for the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima now totals 97 volumes, an increase of two volumes from last year, with 269,446 names. There is also an additional volume holding the names of eight Nagasaki A-bomb victims, up four from last year.

At 8:15 a.m., the time the atomic bomb was dropped, the Peace Bell was rung by a representative of the families of the victims, and a children's representative. Those in attendance then stood and offered a minute of silent prayer.

In the Peace Declaration that followed, Mayor Akiba spoke on behalf of the A-bomb survivors, using Hiroshima dialect, when he said: "No one else should ever have to suffer such horror." Mayor Akiba called on Prime Minister Naoto Kan, also in attendance, to spearhead efforts to conclude a nuclear weapons convention.

Mikina Takamatsu, 11, a sixth grader at Fukuromachi Elementary School, and Kazuhiro Yokobayashi, 11, a sixth grader at Furutadai Elementary School, expressively read out the Commitment to Peace.

(Originally published on August 7, 2010)

Archives