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Opinion

Editorial: 70 years after the war: Nuclear weapons and the human race

Abolition must be achieved

This summer will mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which destroyed those cities and took many lives.

“I can’t die yet.” “Japan must continue to conduct its affairs of state so as to avoid war.”

We were moved by these and other replies of atomic bomb survivors to a survey, which appeared in the January 1 edition of the Chugoku Shimbun. About 90 percent of the survivors said they were concerned that memories of the atomic bombing would fade before long.

The average age of the atomic bomb survivors is now over 79. The number of those who experienced the disaster under the mushroom cloud is dwindling.

That is why we must carry out our duty to pass on the atomic bombing experience and to take action. Most importantly, this must be the year in which steady progress toward the abolition of nuclear weapons is made.

This year, the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings, will mark a major milestone in the international politics of nuclear weapons.

In April and May the review conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) will be held at United Nations headquarters in New York. The conference, the first in five years, will put pressure on the five countries that possess nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China, to implement specific measures toward disarmament. In August the U.N. Conference on Disarmament Issues will be held in Hiroshima.

Clashing tides

A change may occur in the nuclear disarmament effort, which has suffered from a lingering sense of stagnation, as two tides regarding nuclear weapons clash.

One is the trend toward the complete rejection of nuclear weapons. The “humanitarian consequences” of nuclear weapons were first referred to in the final document of the 2010 NPT review conference. With this development, the common-sense notion that nuclear weapons are inhumane spread. This, in turn, is building international opinion in favor of immediate nuclear abolition. In the U.N. General Assembly last year, 80 percent of the body’s member nations and regions lent their support to a statement that emphasized the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.

The groundswell of international opinion that focused on the inhumanity of chemical weapons, land mines and cluster bombs led to treaties banning their use. The growing realization in the international community that nuclear weapons are next has serious implications.

Meanwhile there is an ongoing effort to discourage this movement.

At the International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, which took place in Vienna, Austria in December, the U.S. and the U.K., both participating for the first time, clearly stated their opposition to the effort to introduce a nuclear weapons convention, which had been mounted at a previous conference. The nuclear nations have openly put a stop to the effort led by non-nuclear nations to outlaw nuclear weapons. At the 2000 NPT review conference, 187 nations, including the nuclear nations, agreed to take “concrete steps for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.” This vow made 15 years ago must be renewed at the upcoming conference. Reliance on “nuclear umbrella”

There is no doubt that any effort to get the nuclear nations to the negotiating table to discuss a treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons will face substantial hurdles.

The role of Japan, both a victim of atomic bombings and an ally of the U.S., is now being called into question.

But the Japanese government continues to rely on the “nuclear umbrella” of the U.S. and to draw the line at outlawing nuclear weapons.

And in December, when asked about the prospects for this spring’s NPT review conference, Toshio Sano, the Japanese ambassador for disarmament, offered a pessimistic view saying that achieving success would be “very difficult.” His talking like this several months before the conference makes us wonder about his motivation.

Basic premise to return to

In November, Pope Francis criticized the failure to make progress on the abolition of nuclear weapons saying that “mankind has learned nothing” from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese government in particular must think hard about this.

The accounts of the atomic bomb survivors have moved many people – their suffering and grief at their inability to save someone dear to them, their impassioned pleas to remember the preciousness of peace. But the efforts to pass on their pleas to the younger generation are not enough even in Hiroshima.

The basic premise that the human race cannot coexist with nuclear weapons must be conveyed to the next generation and disseminated to the world. This will serve as the basis for the movement that will make nuclear abolition a reality.

(Originally published on January 3, 2015)

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