Paraguayan President makes first visit to Peace Memorial Park, lays wreath, calls for stronger peace message
May 21, 2025
by Koji Higuchi, Staff Writer
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, who came to Japan for Expo 25 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, visited Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward on May 20 for the first time, where he laid a flower wreath at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. He met with former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima, and said Hiroshima was the most tragic site in human history, stressing the importance of calling for peace worldwide.
Guided by Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, President Peña visited the Children’s Peace Monument, where he offered paper cranes made by children in Paraguay. He then laid a flower wreath at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims with Kishida, who joined him, closed his eyes in prayer, and bowed. Peña also met with Toshiyuki Mimaki, 83, co-chair of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) and chair of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hiroshima Hidankyo).
At the Peace Memorial Museum, Peña viewed exhibits including the White Panorama, which conveys, with computer graphic image, how Hiroshima’s landscape was destroyed by the bombing. In the museum’s guestbook, he wrote: Only a country afflicted by conflict or war can truly understand such suffering. Let’s work together to create a peaceful world.
Paraguay has ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. After talks with Kishida at the International Conference Center Hiroshima on economic cooperation and diplomacy, Peña told the media he had asked Kishida to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.
(Originally published on May 21, 2025)
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, who came to Japan for Expo 25 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, visited Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward on May 20 for the first time, where he laid a flower wreath at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. He met with former Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima, and said Hiroshima was the most tragic site in human history, stressing the importance of calling for peace worldwide.
Guided by Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, President Peña visited the Children’s Peace Monument, where he offered paper cranes made by children in Paraguay. He then laid a flower wreath at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims with Kishida, who joined him, closed his eyes in prayer, and bowed. Peña also met with Toshiyuki Mimaki, 83, co-chair of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) and chair of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hiroshima Hidankyo).
At the Peace Memorial Museum, Peña viewed exhibits including the White Panorama, which conveys, with computer graphic image, how Hiroshima’s landscape was destroyed by the bombing. In the museum’s guestbook, he wrote: Only a country afflicted by conflict or war can truly understand such suffering. Let’s work together to create a peaceful world.
Paraguay has ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. After talks with Kishida at the International Conference Center Hiroshima on economic cooperation and diplomacy, Peña told the media he had asked Kishida to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.
(Originally published on May 21, 2025)
