Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: hibakusha

  • 2015 Evening for Peace Introduction

    Good evening and thank you for being part of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 32nd Annual Evening for Peace. A special welcome to all the students with us tonight. We hope that this evening will be a great learning experience for you – both educational and inspirational.

    Our honoree this year, the 70th anniversary year of the atomic bombings, is a hibakusha – a survivor of those bombings. She, like other hibakusha, has the truest perspective on the horrors caused by the atomic bombs, the perspective of being under a nuclear detonation.

    Before I introduce our honoree to you, I’d like to make a few comments about nuclear weapons and the work of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to abolish them.

    The atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively small nuclear weapons when compared with those of today.  Nonetheless, they were very effective killing devices, killing 210,000 to 220,000 persons in the two cities by blast, fire and radiation by the end of 1945.

    Nuclear weapons are not the friend of humanity or other forms of life. In fact, they are the enemy of all Creation. They are illegal, immoral, tremendously costly and undermine the security of their possessors.

    The only reasonable number of nuclear weapons on our planet is Zero, and it is our collective responsibility to go from where we are to Zero. This has been the goal of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation since our founding in 1982.

    We’ve progressed from 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world in the mid-1980s down to under 16,000 today. This is progress, but it is not sufficient. We still face the prospect of a Global Hiroshima – a nuclear war, by accident or design, which could end civilization and even the human species.

    There is far too much complacency around this issue. I worry about ACID, an acronym for key elements of complacency: Apathy, Conformity, Ignorance and Denial. We must change these acidic forms of complacency to engagement by changing Apathy to Empathy; Conformity to Critical Thinking; Ignorance to Wisdom; and Denial to Recognition of the nuclear threat.

    One important way we do this is through our work as a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands in their lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice and in US federal court. The Marshall Islands does not seek compensation in these lawsuits. They seek only that the nuclear-armed countries negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament as they are obligated to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.

    The Foundation has helped establish legal teams to support these cases, and the attorneys working on the cases have given thousands of hours to this work on a pro bono basis. Two of these lawyers are here this evening and I’d like you to join me in recognizing them: Laurie Ashton and Lynn Sarko.

    I’d also like you to join me in recognizing Dan Smith, another pro bono attorney who has submitted amicus briefs on behalf of other civil society organizations in support of the Marshall Islands.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the courage of the Marshall Islanders and their legal efforts to achieve a victory for all humanity.

    Another way we work to shift complacency to engagement is through our project, “Humanize Not Modernize.” This project opposes the US and other nuclear-armed countries upgrading, modernizing and generally making their nuclear arsenals more usable. The US alone plans to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades on modernizing its nuclear arsenal. It will only benefit the arms manufacturers at the expense of meeting human needs for the poor and hungry and those without health care.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the shift from nuclear insanity to human security.

    Still another way we work to combat nuclear complacency is by educating a new generation of Peace Leaders. Paul Chappell, the director of our Peace Leadership Program, travels the world teaching people the values and skills needed to wage peace. We also have a great internship program at the Foundation, led by Rick Wayman, our Director of Programs. Our interns make valuable contributions to the Foundation’s work.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the development and training of committed young peace leaders.

    Tonight we shine a light on courageous Peace Leadership. This is the 32nd time we have presented our Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. It has gone to some of the great Peace Leaders of our time, including the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Carl Sagan, Yehudi Menuhin, Jody Williams, Jacques Cousteau, Helen Caldicott and Medea Benjamin.

    We are honored to be presenting our 2015 award to an exceptional woman, who is a hibakusha and child victim of war. She was just 13 years old when the US dropped an atomic bomb on her city of Hiroshima. She lost consciousness and awakened to find herself pinned beneath a collapsed building.

    She thought she would die, but she survived and has made it her life’s work to end the nuclear weapons era and to assure that her past does not become someone else’s future. She is a global leader in the fight to prevent a Global Hiroshima and assure that Nagasaki remains the last city to suffer a nuclear attack. Our honoree is a Peace Ambassador of the United Nations University of Peace in Costa Rica, a Peace Ambassador of the city of Hiroshima, and was a nominee for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

    I am very pleased to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2015 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to a courageous Peace Leader and member of the human family, Setsuko Thurlow.

    David Krieger delivered these remarks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 32nd Annual Evening for Peace on October 25, 2015.

  • 2015 Nagasaki Peace Declaration

    At 11:02am, on the 9th August 1945, a single atomic bomb instantly reduced Nagasaki to a ruin.

    A vast amount of radiation passed through people’s bodies, and the city was struck by heat rays and a blast that defy imagination. 74,000 of the city’s population of 240,000 people were killed. A further 75,000 individuals sustained injuries. It was said that vegetation would not grow for at least 70 years. However, today, 70 years on, this hill in Urakami, which was once a ruin, is now enveloped in greenery. Nevertheless, those hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, whose bodies were eaten away by radiation, and who continue to suffer from the aftereffects, can never forget that day.

    The atomic bomb was born of war, and was used in war. The conviction that nuclear weapons must not exist, and that we must never go to war again, was deeply and powerfully engraved upon the hearts of the hibakusha, who know firsthand the fearsome destructive force of atomic bombs. The peaceful ideology of the Constitution of Japan was born from these painful and harsh experiences, and from reflection upon the war. Since the war, our country has walked the path of a peaceful nation. For the sake of Nagasaki, and for the sake of all of Japan, we must never change the peaceful principle that we renounce war.

    Most of our population is now made up of the post-war generation. The memories of war are fast fading from our society. We must not forget the atomic bomb experiences of those in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Neither should we forget the air raids which destroyed Tokyo and many other cities, the Battle of Okinawa, nor the many people of Asia who suffered because of this tragic war. Now, 70 years on, it is vital that we continue to pass on those memories.

    I ask that those of you who experienced the atomic bomb and the war in Japan and across the globe speak of your experiences, and not allow those memories to fade.

    To the young generation, I ask that you do not push wartime experiences aside saying that they are stories of the past. Understand that the wartime generation tell you their stories because what they speak of could, in the future, happen to you as well. Therefore, please inherit their wish for peace. Please imagine what you would do in such circumstances, and ask yourself “What can I do for the sake of peace?” You, the young generation, have the power to transcend national borders and create new relationships.

    The greatest power to realize a world without war and without nuclear weapons lies inside each and every one of us. Listen to stories of the war, sign petitions for nuclear abolition, and visit atomic bomb exhibitions. Together, these individual actions can create a much larger power. In Nagasaki, the younger generation, which includes second and third generation hibakusha, are inheriting the wish for peace and are taking action. Our individual strengths are the greatest power in realizing a world without war and without nuclear weapons. The power of civil society is the power to move governments, and to move the world.

    In May of this year, the “Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)” ended without the adoption of a Final Document. However, the efforts of those countries which are attempting to ban nuclear weapons made possible a draft Final Document which incorporated steps towards nuclear disarmament.

    I ask the following of the heads of the NPT member states. Please do not let this Review Conference have been a waste. Please continue your efforts to debate a legal framework, such as a “Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC)”, at every opportunity, including at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

    Many countries at the Review Conference were in agreement that it is important to visit the atomic-bombed cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Once again, I make a call from Nagasaki. I address President Obama, heads of state, including the heads of the nuclear weapon states, and all the people of the world. Please come to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and see for yourself exactly what happened under those mushroom clouds 70 years ago. Please understand and accept the message of the hibakusha, who are still doing their best to pass on their experiences, not simply as “victims”, but as “members of the human race”.

    I appeal to the Government of Japan. Please explore national security measures which do not rely on nuclear deterrence. The establishment of a “Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NEA-NWFZ)”, as advocated by researchers in America, Japan, Korea, China, and many other countries, would make this possible. Fix your sights on the future, and please consider a conversion from a “nuclear umbrella” to a “non-nuclear umbrella”.

    This summer, Nagasaki held the “International Youth Peace Forum”, where young people from 128 different countries and regions considered and discussed peace.

    In November, Nagasaki will host the “Pugwash International Conference” for the first time. At this Conference, which was inspired by Albert Einstein, who understood the terror of nuclear weapons, scientists from all over the world will gather, discuss the problem of nuclear weapons, and convey a message of peace from Nagasaki to the world.

    “Peace from Nagasaki”. We shall continue to sow the seeds of peace as we treasure these words.

    Furthermore, 4 years on from the Great East Japan Earthquake, Nagasaki continues to support the people of Fukushima who are suffering due to the accident at the nuclear power plant.

    The Diet is currently deliberating a bill which will determine how our country guarantees its security. There is widespread unease and concern that the oath which was engraved onto our hearts 70 years ago and the peaceful ideology of the Constitution of Japan are now wavering. I urge the Government and the Diet to listen to these voices of unease and concern, concentrate their wisdom, and conduct careful and sincere deliberations.

    This year, the average age of the hibakusha has now passed 80. I strongly request that the Government of Japan fulfill its responsibility of providing substantial care that conforms to the actual needs of the hibakusha, and increase the extent of the area acknowledged as being exposed to the atomic bomb while those who were there are still alive.

    We, the people of Nagasaki, offer our most heartfelt condolences to those who lost their lives to the atomic bomb. We hereby declare that together with the citizens of Hiroshima, we shall continue to use all our strength to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, and the realization of peace.

    Tomihisa Taue
    Mayor of Nagasaki
    August 9, 2015

  • 70 Years After Hiroshima, It’s Time to Confront the Past

    This article was originally published by the Huffington Post.

    Setsuko ThurlowAs the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, several people have been asking me to share my thoughts about those days in 1945, when our world changed forever. The first thing that comes to mind is an image of my four-year-old nephew Eiji — transformed into a charred, blackened and swollen child who kept asking in a faint voice for water until he died in agony. Had he not been a victim of the atomic bomb, he would be 74 years old this year. This idea shocks me. Regardless of the passage of time, he remains in my memory as a 4-year-old child who came to represent all the innocent children of the world. And it is this death of innocents that has been the driving force for me to continue my struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. Eiji’s image is burnt into my retina.

    In June I had the opportunity to visit Berlin and Potsdam to meet German citizens to talk about my experience in Hiroshima. Germans and Japanese experienced a similar historical trauma as aggressor-states in World War II. But there has been a decisively different way that the Japanese and German governments are dealing with their wartime responsibilities.

    Many Japanese people were deeply inspired by the manner in which the German government confronted the past and dealt with wartime atrocities with integrity. Former President Richard von Weizeker’s inspiring speech on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Germany’s surrender touched the conscience of the world, and earned our profound respect when he said “We Germans must look truth straight in the eye — without embellishment and without distortion… There can be no reconciliation without remembrance.”

    The Japanese government should emulate this profound sentiment in confronting the past and dealing with our as yet unresolved relationships with neighboring countries, particularly Korea and China. Tragically, the current Abe administration is seeking to expand Japan’s military role in the region and forsake our much-cherished Peace Constitution.

    And in the United States, a repugnant remembrance is soon to be unveiled. The National Park Service and the Department of Energy will establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Unlike the memorials at Auschwitz and Treblinka, the United States seeks to preserve the history of the once top-secret sites at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford, where international scientists developed the world’s first nuclear bomb, as a sort of celebration of that technological ‘achievement’. Among the first so-called ‘successes’ of this endeavor was creating hell on earth in my beloved Hiroshima.

    As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, I witnessed my city of Hiroshima blinded by the flash, flattened by the hurricane-like blast, burned in the heat of 4000 degrees Celsius and contaminated by the radiation of one atomic bomb.

    Miraculously, I was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building, about 1.8 kilometers from Ground Zero. Most of my classmates in the same room were burned alive. I can still hear their voices calling their mothers and God for help. As I escaped with two other surviving girls, we saw a procession of ghostly figures slowly shuffling from the centre of the city. Grotesquely wounded people, whose clothes were tattered, or who were made naked by the blast. They were bleeding, burnt, blackened and swollen. Parts of their bodies were missing, flesh and skin hanging from their bones, some with their eyeballs hanging in their hands, and some with their stomachs burst open, with their intestines hanging out.

    Within that single flash of light, my beloved Hiroshima became a place of desolation, with heaps of skeletons and blackened corpses everywhere. Of a population of 360,000 — largely non-combatant women, children and elderly — most became victims of the indiscriminate massacre of the atomic bombing. As of now, over 250,000 victims have perished in Hiroshima from the effects of the blast, heat and radiation. 70 years later, people are still dying from the delayed effects of one atomic bomb, considered crude by today’s standard for mass destruction.

    Most experts agree that nuclear weapons are more dangerous now than at any point in our history due to a wide variety of risks including: geopolitical saber rattling, human error, computer failure, complex systems failure, increasing radioactive contamination in the environment and its toll on public and environmental health, as well as the global famine and climate chaos that would ensue should a limited use of nuclear weapons occur by accident or design. Yet few people truly grasp the meaning of living in the nuclear age.

    This is why I have been overjoyed at witnessing the recent development of a global movement involving Non Nuclear Weapon States and NGOs working together to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. This movement has been reframing the problem of nuclear weapons from deterrence credibility and techno-military issues to the issue of humanitarian consequences. The result is a strong push for a nuclear Ban Treaty to begin a process for nuclear disarmament. Norway, Mexico and Austria have collaborated with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the International Committee of the Red Cross to organize three successful International Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.

    At the end of the most recent conference in Vienna last December, the Austrian government unveiled the “Austrian Pledge” to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. Now referred to as the Humanitarian Pledge, it is supported by 113 nations that are calling on Nuclear Weapon States and those who stand with them, to begin a process for nuclear disarmament.

    To repeat the words of Richard von Weizeker: “We must look truth straight in the eye – without embellishment and without distortion.” The truth is, we all live with the daily threat of nuclear weapons. In every silo, on every submarine, in the bomb bays of airplanes, every second of every day, nuclear weapons, thousands on high alert, are poised for deployment threatening everyone we love and everything we hold dear.

    How much longer can we allow the nuclear weapon states to wield this threat to all life on earth? The time has come for action to establish a legally binding framework to ban nuclear weapons as a first step in their total abolition. I passionately urge everyone who loves this world to join the growing global movement. And let us make the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the appropriate milestone to achieve our goal: to abolish nuclear weapons, and safeguard the future of our one shared planet earth.

  • 2015 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    In our town, we had the warmth of family life, the deep human bonds of community, festivals heralding each season, traditional culture and buildings passed down through history, as well as riversides where children played. At 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, all of that was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Below the mushroom cloud, a charred mother and child embraced, countless corpses floated in rivers, and buildings burned to the ground. Tens of thousands were burned in those flames. By year’s end, 140,000 irreplaceable lives had been taken, that number including Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, and American prisoners of war.

    Those who managed to survive, their lives grotesquely distorted, were left to suffer serious physical and emotional aftereffects compounded by discrimination and prejudice. Children stole or fought routinely to survive. A young boy rendered an A-bomb orphan still lives alone; a wife was divorced when her exposure was discovered. The suffering continues.

    “Madotekure!” This is the heartbroken cry of hibakusha who want Hiroshima—their hometown, their families, their own minds and bodies—put back the way it was.

    One hundred years after opening as the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall and 70 years after the atomic bombing, the A-bomb Dome still watches over Hiroshima. In front of this witness to history, I want us all, once again, to face squarely what the A-bomb did and embrace fully the spirit of the hibakusha.

    Meanwhile, our world still bristles with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, and policymakers in the nuclear-armed states remain trapped in provincial thinking, repeating by word and deed their nuclear intimidation. We now know about the many incidents and accidents that have taken us to the brink of nuclear war or nuclear explosions. Today, we worry as well about nuclear terrorism.

    As long as nuclear weapons exist, anyone could become a hibakusha at any time. If that happens, the damage will reach indiscriminately beyond national borders. People of the world, please listen carefully to the words of the hibakusha and, profoundly accepting the spirit of Hiroshima, contemplate the nuclear problem as your own.

    A woman who was 16 at the time appeals, “Expanding ever wider the circle of harmony that includes your family, friends, and neighbors links directly to world peace. Empathy, kindness, solidarity—these are not just intellectual concepts; we have to feel them in our bones.” A man who was 12 emphasizes, “War means tragedy for adults and children alike. Empathy, caring, loving others and oneself—this is where peace comes from.”

    These heartrending messages, forged in a cauldron of suffering and sorrow, transcend hatred and rejection. Their spirit is generosity and love for humanity; their focus is the future of humankind.

    Human beings transcend differences of nationality, race, religion, and language to live out our one-time-only lives on the planet we share. To coexist we must abolish the absolute evil and ultimate inhumanity that is nuclear weapons. Now is the time to start taking action. Young people are already starting petition drives, posting messages, organizing marches and launching a variety of efforts. Let’s all work together to build an enormous ground swell.

    In this milestone 70th year, the average hibakusha is now over 80 years old. The city of Hiroshima will work even harder to preserve the facts of the bombing, disseminate them to the world, and convey them to coming generations. At the same time, as president of Mayors for Peace, now with more than 6,700 member cities, Hiroshima will act with determination, doing everything in our power to accelerate the international trend toward negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.

    Is it not the policymakers’ proper role to pursue happiness for their own people based on generosity and love of humanity? Policymakers meeting tirelessly to talk—this is the first step toward nuclear weapons abolition. The next step is to create, through the trust thus won, broadly versatile security systems that do not depend on military might. Working with patience and perseverance to achieve those systems will be vital, and will require that we promote throughout the world the path to true peace revealed by the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution.

    The summit meeting to be held in Japan’s Ise-Shima next year and the foreign ministers’ meeting to be held in Hiroshima prior to that summit are perfect opportunities to deliver a message about the abolition of nuclear weapons. President Obama and other policymakers, please come to the A-bombed cities, hear the hibakusha with your own ears, and encounter the reality of the atomic bombings. Surely, you will be impelled to start discussing a legal framework, including a nuclear weapons convention.

    We call on the Japanese government, in its role as bridge between the nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon states, to guide all states toward these discussions, and we offer Hiroshima as the venue for dialogue and outreach. In addition, we ask that greater compassion for our elderly hibakusha and the many others who now suffer the effects of radiation be expressed through stronger support measures. In particular, we demand expansion of the “black rain areas.”

    Offering our heartfelt prayers for the peaceful repose of the A-bomb victims, we express as well our gratitude to the hibakusha and all our predecessors who worked so hard throughout their lives to rebuild Hiroshima and abolish nuclear weapons. Finally, we appeal to the people of the world: renew your determination. Let us work together with all our might for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.

    MATSUI Kazumi
    Mayor
    The City of Hiroshima

  • Hibakusha Thoughts on the 70th Anniversary of the Nuclear Age

    Shigeko Sasamori“This year, 2015, commemorates the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, yet I will always remember the horrible tragedy.

    “During this year, in particular, the mass media covered many peace organizations that held anti-war and anti-nuclear events. I hope many people will participate in and learn from these events to cooperate for promotion of peace.

    “People cannot live forever. People die from natural causes such as illness and disease and from natural disasters such as floods, fires, and earthquakes, but war claims the most lives. People start wars. People should stop wars.

    “People worldwide still suffer from the aftermath of war.

    “To have world peace, everybody in the world must cooperate.”

    — Shigeko Sasamori, age 83, survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima

    Setsuko Thurlow“The first thought that comes to me is the image of my four-year-old nephew Eiji transformed to a charred, blackened child who died in agony. Had he not been a victim of the atomic bomb, he would have been 74 years old this year. This shocked me. Regardless of the passage of time, he remains in my memory as a four-year-old child, who came to represent all the innocent children of the world. This has been the driving, compelling force for me to continue my struggle against the ultimate evil of nuclear weapons. His image is burned into my retina.

    “Many survivors have been passing in recent years with their dream of the abolition of nuclear weapons unfulfilled. Yes, their motto was, ‘Abolition in our lifetime.’ This reality intensifies the sense of urgency more than ever, with firmer commitment.”

    — Setsuko Thurlow, age 83, survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima

  • The Nuclear Age at Seventy

    The first explosion of a nuclear device took place at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Just three weeks later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and three days after that on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The new weapons had devastating power, killing approximately 100,000 people immediately in the two cities and another 100,000 people by the end of 1945.

    David KriegerSince these bombings brought the world into the Nuclear Age, the human future and that of other forms of life have been at risk. Never before did humankind have the power to destroy itself, but that completely changed in the Nuclear Age. By our own scientific and technological cleverness, we humans had created the means of our own demise. Our technological capacity for destruction had exceeded our spiritual capacity to work together and cooperate to end the threat that these weapons posed to our common future. 

    After the bombings of the two Japanese cities, the United States almost immediately entered into a nuclear arms race with itself. In 1946, when the US was the only nuclear-armed country in the world, it began atmospheric nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, then a United Nations Trust Territory that the US had agreed to administer. The US broke the bond of trust by testing 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, with an explosive power equivalent to detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. 

    In the decades that followed, other countries would develop nuclear arsenals. These included: the USSR (now Russia), UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. On numerous occasions the nuclear-armed countries came close to using nuclear weapons by accident, miscalculation or design. The most serious of these near disasters was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which went on for 13 days in 1962, while the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. 

    At the height of the nuclear arms race in 1986, there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world. There were more nuclear weapons than there were targets for them. With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the number of nuclear weapons began to fall and since then the world, primarily the US and Russia, has shed over 50,000 nuclear weapons. 

    Today there are approximately 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with over 90 percent in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 1,800 of these remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments. These are still insane numbers, with species- ending potential. Yet, strangely, most people on the planet do not think much about nuclear dangers. 

    One group of people, though, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, still think a lot about these dangers. These survivors, or hibakusha (as they are known in Japan), have witnessed the horrors of nuclear weapons at close hand. They have seen the death and destruction caused by the relatively small nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They speak out with the moral certainty that they do not want their past to become anyone else’s future. 

    All nine nuclear-armed countries are engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals. Together they are spending $100 billion annually on them. The US alone is planning to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades on modernizing its nuclear arsenal. It is a waste of precious resources that should be reallocated to meeting human needs for food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, a clean environment and repaired infrastructure. 

    The grand bargain of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is that the non-nuclear-armed states agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear-armed states agreed to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. The goal is a level playing field, with no countries possessing nuclear weapons. The problem with the bargain is that the nuclear-armed countries are not holding up their end. 

    Lawsuits against all nuclear-armed nations To set this right, the Republic of the Marshall Islands has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries, calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to declare them in breach of their obligations and order them to commence the promised negotiations. Because the US is such an important player and does not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, a separate lawsuit was brought against it in US federal court. 

    If the people of the Marshall Islands can demonstrate such boldness and courage, so can the rest of us. It is time for action to demand a nuclear weapons-free world. It is time to challenge hubris with wisdom, and complacency with compassion. Nuclear weapons are powerful, but the human heart is more powerful. As Pope Francis said, we need a “conversion of hearts.” 

    It is time to join with the hibakusha in demanding a world free of nuclear weapons. The world has waited for 70 years to end the nuclear weapons era. The next decades may not be so kind to humanity. We must act now, while we still can, to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    This article was originally published by the Hiroshima Peace Media Center.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). 

  • Delegitimziing Nuclear Weapons: The Role of Citizens and Hibakusha

    David KriegerTo understand how to delegitimize nuclear weapons, it is necessary to understand and deconstruct their legitimization.   Let us explore some of the beliefs by which these weapons have been legitimized.

    1.    Nuclear weapons ended World War II.
    2.    Nuclear weapons prevent war.
    3.    No rational leader would use nuclear weapons.
    4.    Nuclear weapons make countries more secure.
    5.    Nuclear weapons are needed to protect against a nuclear attack.

    Let’s examine these beliefs, and check their basis in fact.

    Nuclear weapons ended World War II.  At the end of World War II Japan was trying to surrender.  Nearly all of its major cities had already been destroyed by conventional bombing.  With the Soviet entry into the war in the Pacific on August 9, 1945, Japanese leaders knew they had no chance to prevail.  It wasn’t nuclear weapons that ended World War II.  It was the Soviet entry into the war in the Pacific.  Nuclear weapons caused massive suffering and death in a country that was already defeated and trying to surrender.

    Nuclear weapons prevent war.  It is said that the threat to use nuclear weapons has prevented war, but actually many wars have occurred during the Nuclear Age.  Nuclear weapons have not caused wars, but they also have not prevented wars.  Countries with nuclear weapons have thankfully been reluctant to use them, even when losing a war.  Examples include the US in Vietnam, the UK in the Falkland Islands, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

    No rational leader would use nuclear weapons.  Actually, a presumably rational leader, Harry Truman, did use nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There is no guarantee that another rational leader in possession of nuclear weapons will not decide that the use of these weapons is in his or her country’s best interests.  In addition, not all national leaders are rational at all times and particularly in times of stress.  Some national leaders are simply not rational, even under normal circumstances.

    Nuclear weapons make countries more secure.  They actually do not.  If a country has nuclear weapons, it is certain that it will also be targeted by nuclear weapons.  The ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons does not assure that another country will not attack you by accident or design; it only assures that you can retaliate.  This would be small compensation after a nuclear attack.
    Nuclear weapons are needed to protect against a nuclear attack.  Not so.  The best protection against a nuclear attack is the global elimination of nuclear weapons.  If there are no nuclear weapons on the planet, no country can be attacked.

    What Nuclear Weapons Really Are

    To delegitimize nuclear weapons, people need to understand what nuclear weapons really are and really do.  They need to understand that nuclear weapons undermine their security rather than enhance it.  They need to call these weapons by their true names: devices of mass annihilation and instruments of omnicide (the death of all).

    When we speak of nuclear weapons, we refer to the most deadly and dangerous weapons ever created.  This is how retired US Air Force General George Lee Butler, once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons, describes nuclear weapons:

    “Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their effects transcend time and space, poisoning the Earth and deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation. They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all hope for survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of nations but of civilization.”

    Religious leader and Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has an equally strong view of the nature of nuclear weapons:

    “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity.  They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world.  What security do they help establish?  What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”

    Importance of Hibakusha

    No group of people can reach the hearts of their fellow humans and make clearer what these weapons really are than the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  That is why their words and their pleas are so important.  They have lived with the pain and sounded the warning.  Because the hibakusha are growing older and becoming fewer, their message to the world is even more precious and comes with a greater sense of urgency.  I urge young people to reach out to hibakusha, learn from them, and help in conveying their message to the world; make their conclusions about the need to abolish nuclear weapons also your own message to the world.

    Nuclear weapons endanger all of us.  In the crisis of shared danger, comes the possibility of shared action to overcome that danger.  The hibakusha and civil society organizations are helping to lead the way out of the Nuclear Age.  They are leading, but the nuclear weapons states are not yet demonstrating the political will to follow.

    New Ethic

    Nuclear weapons are an absolute evil.  They are the ultimate suicide note to the planet.  They could render the planet uninhabitable for humans and other complex forms of life, but the planet itself would survive the worst we could do.  It is not the planet that is endangered; it is we humans.
    I believe we humans need a new ethic to see us safely through and out of the Nuclear Age.  For me, this new universal ethic would have the following elements:

    •    Reverence for life.  This is the central philosophy of Albert Schweitzer.  It requires us to care for our fellow humans and for all creatures.  We must be kind and good stewards of the planet.

    •    Earth citizenship.  We owe our allegiance to the Earth and to people everywhere.  Our problems are global and our solutions must be global as well.

    •    Universal human rights, including the sacred right to peace.  All humans are entitled by virtue of being human to the basic rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  As the United Nations has declared, there is also a sacred right to peace.

    •    Universal human responsibilities.  With rights come responsibilities, including each generation’s responsibility to pass the planet on intact to new generations.

    Nuclear weapons are incompatible with these ethical foundations.  As the ultimate mass killing device, they are the antithesis to reverence for life.  They divide countries and their inhabitants into nuclear haves and have-nots.  They are an assault on human rights and life itself, and their possession and threat of use are a violation of our responsibilities to humankind as a whole and to future generations.

    Immediate Goals

    Immediate goals include:

    •    either a treaty or individual pledges by all nuclear weapons states of No First Use of nuclear weapons;

    •    de-alerting of nuclear arsenals; and

    •    commencement of negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Our best hope for the human future is to unite in support of the abolition of nuclear weapons.  National security must give way to planetary security through the acts of individuals joining together with compassion, commitment, creativity and cooperation, and acting with courage.  We need to awaken from our slumber and be the noble people we are capable of being.  When nuclear weapons are abolished, it will be time for a new “C”: celebration.  We can celebrate our gift to ourselves and to the future.

    Why Work to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    I will conclude with 12 reasons to work to abolish nuclear weapons.

    We can change the world in important and necessary ways.
    We can take a giant step forward for humankind.
    We can join with others in demonstrating good stewardship of the planet.
    We can take control of our most dangerous technology.
    We can help shape a more decent common future.
    We can end the threat of omnicide posed by nuclear weapons.
    We can uphold international law for the common benefit.
    We can lead the way toward ending war as a human institution.
    We can meet the greatest challenge confronting our species.
    We can put compassion into action and action into compassion.
    We can help to protect everything in life that we love and treasure.
    We can pass on a more secure world to our children and grandchildren and all future generations.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

  • Hiroshima: City of Hope

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), will give the keynote address at an international peace symposium to be held in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 25. This event is organized by Chugoku Shimbun to commemorate the 5th Anniversary of the Hiroshima Peace Media Center. The symposium is entitled “Toward a Nuclear-Free World: Spreading Hiorshima’s Message.”

    Mr. Krieger has been to Hiroshima on many occasions in the past. “This city is a special place, made sacred by the pain, suffering, forgiveness and perseverance of the survivors of the atomic bomb. I consider it an honor to be invited to speak here. I am truly humbled,” said Krieger.

    He continued, “In my speech, entitled, ‘Hiroshima: City of Hope,’ I wish to tell the hibakusha (surviving victims of the atomic bombings) that their efforts and messages matter and that their words and deeds have touched people’s hearts throughout the world, including my own.”

    Mr. Krieger’s keynote address at the symposium is one of many continuing efforts by The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to build momentum throughout the world towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. According to Krieger, “It’s critically important that no other city or country will ever suffer the same experiences and devastation caused by nuclear weapons such as those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the far more powerful weapons that exist today.”

    While in Hiroshima, Mr. Krieger will meet with Tadatoshi Akiba, the former Mayor of Hiroshima and current Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI). Through the MPI, eight international non-governmental organizations, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, are able to work with middle power governments to encourage the nuclear weapons states to take immediate, practical steps that reduce nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Mr. Krieger will also meet with Ambassador Yasuyoshi Komizo, the new Director of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. In a recent speech, Amabassador Komizo expressed his belief that a nuclear free world would require a new and reliable security framework based on a sense of community on a global scale and built upon mutual trust between people, replacing the current system of nuclear deterrence based on a reality of distrust and built upon the threat of nuclear weapons.

    Mr. Krieger will stress that “The hibakusha have returned from that place of horror with hope in their hearts. By their willingness to forgive and by their constant efforts to end the nuclear weapons era, they have nurtured hope and kept it alive for all these years. It will soon be up to the next generations to carry on working for a world free of nuclear weapons in the spirit of the hibakusha.”

    A transcript of Mr. Krieger’s speech can be found here.

  • Moving Back to Rongelap?

    This speech was delivered at the 2012 World Conference against A- and H- Bombs.


    Good morning. My name is Jelton Anjain. I bring warm lakwe (greetings) on behalf of the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Rongelap Atoll local government and especially the displaced people of Rongelap. I have the great honor and privilege to be here joining you throughout this week to commemorate all the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-Bombs. This conference is significant in that they bring us together from different parts of the world where we become one in friendship to fight for peace and justice and try to convince the world to eradicate the use of nuclear weapons.


    I would like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to the Organizing Committee for inviting me to join you this week. Last time I joined these rallies was when I escorted my uncle John Anjain back in 2004. Now my father Jeton Anjain and all my uncles who fought this nuclear injustice have passed away and we, the younger generations, still carry on their legacy. We are a small group of people, but we will never stop in our fight against this nuclear injustice that was brought upon us.


    I’d like to tell you a hypothetical story. We all know the importance of making a living from our natural resources.


    “If the islands were not used for testing of nuclear bombs and our islands remained clean today, and if I was a farmer, I would easily go into my field of crops and harvest, and afterwards, I’d take my spear gun and go spear fishing. For a day’s work, a normal farmer/fisherman would easily make over $500 if he takes his crops and fish to sell at any market. Now, since the islands are contaminated and we were forced to get sicknesses and to leave our homeland, those normal farmers/fishermen who are not fortunate enough to get educated and cannot find a decent job, they are forced to live on $75 for their quarterly compensations from the US government.”


    That has always been the situation of the Rongelapese over the years and that is the situation of the Rongelapese today.


    Just in 2010, the US Congress sent a letter to the US Department of Interiors’ office of Insular Affairs urging them to have the people of Rongelap move from Mejatto Island in the Kwajalein Atoll back to Rongelap. Despite the fact that the islands are not ready and still contaminated, US Congress is urging our people to move back. US government is telling our people that those who choose not to move to Rongelap will no longer receive compensation. We were given until October of 2011 to move back but are people are still uneasy about going back as we know the islands are still not clean. The US calls this relocation a necessity due to budgetary difficulties. Since the scientists have certified these islands as ready for resettlement, it is a legal and economic necessity. Now if the scientists are saying that these islands are safe to go back to, why are they urging our people to “consume 30% local diet from the land and 70% imported food.” This statement alone clearly indicates that the islands are still contaminated.


    Now they say it’s a “legal and economic necessity.” Our lives are worth more than their money, our lives are worth more than their legal system. We have a right to live a full and healthy life as human beings. Mejatto Island is only 60 miles away from the urban city of Ebeye. And Ebeye is the closest place our people on Mejatto get their imported food from, but transportation to and from Ebeye is hard to come by, especially when the weather and seas are not good. If we move back to our islands and are not allowed to eat from the land, how can our people get imported food from Ebeye when it is close to 200 miles away from Rongelap? And transportation is always a problem. People would have to rely on tri-annual ships that would come and bring them food, and if the ships don’t make their scheduled runs, they would be forced to eat off the land which is poisonous.


    The RMI national government does not support this relocation by the US government for the Rongelap people to move back even though the Rongelap local government and the US government are pushing for it. The Alap association of Rongelap, which I represent, does not support this resettlement at the moment, for we all know the islands are still not livable. We do not want to risk going back and have our people get sick again just like we did when the US told our people back in 1957 that the islands were safe to return to after three years of exile. We surely don’t want to take that risk again. The community is uncertain as to whether to go back home or not because our local leadership does not conduct public hearings to report on current status of the radiation, funds and reports on guaranteed better and safe life. People do not trust the Department of Energy (DoE), they are not truthful about the cleanup and safety of the islands and guaranteed health insurance for the people, especially the descendants of our hibakusha. Like you, we go through the same social, economic and health injustices caused by what the US did to our islands, for the so-called “good of mankind.” I tell you, slavery still exists today: we are slaves to the social and cultural instability. We are slaves to the limited educational skills we bear. We are slaves to the health problems our children and elders encounter every day. We are slaves for we lack the economic stability to prevent these causes of slavery in our lives.


    So I am here today, my friends, as their voice. I come to ask you to be our extended voice to the world. Let the world know of what we go through every day we wake up to greet the sun. I ask that we stand together to fight this injustice. Only then will we be able to overcome all of this.


    Komol.

  • 2012 Nagasaki Peace Declaration

    Tomihisa TaueHumankind has senselessly engaged in wars repeatedly throughout history. However, even during wartime there are certain unacceptable actions. Under current international humanitarian law, it is regarded as a criminal act to kill or injure children, mothers, civilians, injured soldiers, or prisoners of war. Moreover, the law unequivocally bans the use of poisonous gases, biological weapons, anti-personnel landmines and other inhumane weapons that indiscriminately cause suffering to people and significantly impact the environment.


    On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 a.m., a single atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki by a United States bomber. The intense heat rays caused by the bomb charred the bodies of many victims. Blast winds, strong enough to bend iron rails, tore apart the bodies of many others. Skin hung off of naked bodies. Mothers carried their headless babies. People who looked healthy died one after another. In that year alone, the atomic bomb took over 74,000 lives and injured another 75,000. Those who survived have continued to suffer a higher incidence of contracting cancer and other serious radiation-induced diseases and, even today, they still live in fear.


    Why haven’t nuclear weapons, capable of indiscriminately and inhumanely taking so many lives and causing a lifetime of anguish for those left behind, been banned yet?


    In November 2011, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, a movement that has long observed the cruelty of warfare, adopted the humanitarian-based resolution “Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons.” In May 2012, the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference was held in Vienna. At the session, representatives of many countries cited the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, and a Joint Statement on the Humanitarian Dimension of Nuclear Disarmament was presented on behalf of sixteen countries. At long last, calls to define nuclear weapons as inhumane have grown louder, in line with what the people from atomic-bombed cities have long been vocally demanding.


    However, what is the situation we are facing today?


    There are over 19,000 nuclear weapons in the world. People all over the world live with the danger that a nuclear war could break out at any moment. I ask you, what would happen to humanity if a modern nuclear weapon, far more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were to be used?


    To ensure that Nagasaki is the last city ever to be a victim of a nuclear attack, it is essential to definitively ban not only the use of nuclear weapons but everything from their development to their deployment. A new approach is required that goes beyond the confines of the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and we have already determined several methods of doing so.


    One method is the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). In 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed the need for the NWC. For the first time, the NWC was mentioned in the Final Document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The international community must act now by taking the first concrete steps towards concluding the NWC.


    The creation of Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ) is another realistic and concrete method at our disposal. Most of the lands in the Southern Hemisphere are already covered by these zones, and this year efforts are being made to organize a meeting to discuss the creation of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. To date, we have repeatedly called on the Japanese government to work toward the creation of a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. Along with enacting the Three Non-Nuclear Principles into law, the Japanese government must promote efforts such as these, address the serious challenge presented by nuclear weapons in North Korea, and demonstrate leadership as the only atomic bombed country in the world.


    In April 2012, the long-awaited Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA) was established at Nagasaki University. RECNA is expected to serve as a hub for networking and disseminating information and proposals pertinent to the abolition of nuclear weapons. With the establishment of RECNA, we here in Nagasaki are determined more than ever to further our work to fulfill the mission tasked to us an atomic bombed city.


    Reaching out to the youth is vital in realizing a world without nuclear weapons. Starting tomorrow, the Global Forum on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education will begin here in Nagasaki co-sponsored by the Japanese government and the United Nations University.


    Nuclear weapons were born out of distrust and fear of other countries as well as the desire for power. Nagasaki will also be emphasizing peace and international understanding education to help create a world where future generations can live in a society based on mutual trust, a sense of security, and the notion of harmonious coexistence.


    The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. shook the world. We here in Nagasaki will continue to support the people of Fukushima as it brings us great sorrow that every day they still face the fear of radiation. In addition to speeding up restoration of the affected areas, we call on the Japanese government to set new energy policy goals to build a society free from the fear of radioactivity and present concrete measures to implement these policies. We cannot postpone the issue of the disposal of the vast amount of nuclear waste generated from operating nuclear plants. It is up to the international community to cooperate and address this problem.


    The average age of the remaining atomic bomb survivors now exceeds seventy seven. We ask once again of the government to listen to the voices of those suffering with utmost sincerity and make efforts towards the enhancement of additional support policies.


    We offer our sincere condolences for the lives lost in the atomic bombings, and pledge to continue our efforts towards the abolition of nuclear weapons hand-in-hand with the citizens of Hiroshima and all people in the world who share our goal for a nuclear free world.