Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Hiroshima

  • Duck and Cover: A Pictorial History of Nuclear Weapon

    Click here or on the image below to read “Duck and Cover: A Pictorial History of Nuclear Weapons” by Bob Farquhar.

     

  • The Bells of Hiroshima – in Los Alamos

    This article was originally published by the National Catholic Reporter.


    John Dear, SJA hundred and fifty of us gathered on Sunday night, Aug. 5, at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos, New Mexico, at the exact spot where long ago the Hiroshima Bomb was built. Right at 5:15 p.m — 8:15 a.m. Monday morning, Aug. 6 in Japan — we heard live, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the ringing of the Peace Bell in Hiroshima.


    It was deeply moving. Each year, thousands gather in Hiroshima in Peace Park to commemorate the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing with a ceremony and the ringing of the giant Peace Bell. But here we were, standing in Los Alamos where the bomb was made, listening live over our sound system to the deep sound of the bell in Hiroshima. For once, people in Hiroshima and Los Alamos were connected in commemorating the U.S. bombing. It was a holy moment.


    After we heard the solemn bell several times, all hundred and fifty of us processed in silence two by two up Trinity Boulevard toward Oppenheimer Way and the main entrance of LANL, the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories.


    At 5:45 p.m. precisely, we each donned sackcloth and poured ashes on the sidewalk and sat down in strict silence, using this ancient biblical symbol of “sackcloth and ashes” to “repent of the mortal sin of nuclear weapons and beg the God of peace for the gift of disarmament.”


    We sat in contemplative prayer for thirty minutes. Cars passed by. Clouds hung overhead. And you could hear a pin drop.


    But for me, that deep Hiroshima bell continued to resonate. It was like a giant mindfulness bell, calling the world back to the center of peace.


    For years now we’ve used the ancient biblical symbol of sackcloth and ashes. In the Book of Jonah, we recalled, Jonah marches through the town of Ninevah, and calls the people to repent of their violence. Lo and behold, the entire town repents in sackcloth and ashes, and changes their violent ways.


    That’s what we’re trying to do: to call upon the people of Los Alamos and United States to repent of the evil work of building and maintaining nuclear weapons; to take responsibility for our own complicity in this culture of death; to demand that we dismantle our nuclear weapons; and to welcome a new nuclear-free world. That’s our hope and our prayer.


    The evening action came after a remarkable weekend conference in Santa Fe called “Vision Without Fission.” Several dozen speakers looked at nuclear weapons from a variety of angles. Indigenous women from the Santa Clara Pueblo, for example, which is located at the foot of the mountains below the labs, told their stories and expressed their sadness and outrage at the ongoing development of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos.


    At the heart of the weekend was the witness of our friend, Alaric Balibrera. Alaric is a Santa Fe screenwriter who grew up in Los Alamos, where his father was the documentarian for LANL. As a child, he saw films of the atomic explosions projected practically every evening on his living room wall. Later, he visited Hiroshima and finally realized the horrors which his hometown had unleashed upon the world.


    On July 16, the anniversary of the first nuclear bomb test, Alaric began a “hunger strike” to protest nuclear weapons development. He’s still fasting today, three weeks later, and still calling for the end of nukes. Dozens of people have joined Alaric for a day or more of fasting. He is perhaps the first Los Alamos resident to make such a public stand against nuclear weapons.


    “I’m on hunger strike because I love Los Alamos and I love science and I want to see both of them used for the enrichment of humanity,” Alaric told me as we sat on the lawn by Ashley Pond, listening to musicians singing about peace. “There’s so many wonderful things we can do with science — cure cancer, cleanup our messes, and create freedom want.”


    “I’m striking for transformation from a world of competition to a world of cooperation. I don’t believe we need to raise our children for the future; we need to raise the future for our children. The minds of Los Alamos could be turned to creating solutions to our most pressing problems. I want to see this brain power used for life-sustaining work.”


    Other speakers included Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research; Joni Arends of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety; Pancho Ramos Stierle, from the Oakland Occupy movement; Cynthia Jurs, of the Open Way Buddhist Sangha; and Beata Tsosie-Pena of the Santa Clara Pueblo who works with HOPE, (“Honor Our Pueblo Existence”).


    “I’m here because if you’re going to fight nuclear weapons, you have to come to the source,” William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, told me. “This is ground zero for weapons of mass destruction, so we have to speak here.” I asked Bill about hope. “I think the fact that our president said we have to get rid of these weapons is good. People are realizing we can’t afford them. These moments come in waves, and I think more people are coming along who will help make disarmament a reality.”


    “I’m here to do my part for nuclear abolition,” Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico told me, “and we’re going to do it, but it will be a step by step process. This weekend has been fabulous for focusing us, and we’re going to keep doing this every year until we get the job done!”


    Today there is little accountability, transparency or public participation in decisions made at Los Alamos, according to www.nukefrewnow.org, the broad coalition that sponsored the weekend. They write:



    After the war, a few scientists, fearing that the new A-bomb might initiate a nuclear arms race, worked to stop its further development. As we know, they failed, and the task of controlling and stopping nuclear weapons was left to later generations…. Since 2006 nuclear weapons have been a for-profit business at the Lab. From 1943 to 2006, the University of California (UC) ran the Lab as a non-profit entity. Since 2006, LANL has been operated by Los Alamos National Security (LANS), a for-profit cooperation. The dominant members of LANS are the international construction giant Bechtel and UC. Under LANS, the research and design of nuclear weapons at LANL became a for profit business and costs soared. In 2011, for instance, US taxpayers paid over $83 million to run LANL, ten times what UC as sole manager received; the same year the Lab Director was paid over $1 million, triple the pre-Bechtel salary. Bechtel, the world’s largest privately owned corporation, conducts all daily operations at the Lab… The Labs continue to be a drain on the state of New Mexico, despite what politicians say… The county of Los Alamos receives $47 million a year from the state of New Mexico from the gross receipts tax paid by the lab as a for profit business. Los Alamo County has the lowest poverty rate of any county in the United States and the most millionaires per capita in the country. On the other hand, the state of New Mexico is fourth from the bottom in income and more of our children — twenty-five percent — live in poverty than in any other state.


    For my part in the program, I noted that nuclear weapons not only bankrupt us economically, they bankrupt us spiritually. I read what Mahatma Gandhi said a few days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima: “I hold that those who invented the atomic bomb have committed the gravest sin. The atomic bomb brought an empty victory to the Allied arms, but it resulted for the time being in destroying Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see… Unless the world adopts nonviolence, this will spell certain suicide for humanity.”


    Today, we see everywhere the effect that the bomb has had upon us as a nation, I continued:



    We have lost our soul. We have no sense of meaning, love, truth, empathy or compassion, no understanding of our basic humanity. So we come here to repent of this the gravest sin and start the journey again to reclaim our soul, to become people of nonviolence, to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons once and for all, and to redirect those billions of dollars for food for the world’s hungry, homes for the homeless, free healthcare, jobs and education for everyone, and training every human being on the planet in the methodologies of nonviolent conflict resolution.


    I invited everyone at the Labs to quit their jobs and join the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. It’s a call we will continue to make as we try to build the nuclear abolition movement.


    On the morning of Aug. 6 itself, members of “Occupy Los Alamos” took to the streets of Los Alamos and blocked the street near the main entrance to the Labs. Six were arrested and given court dates.


    But I will not soon forget standing on the green lawn where the Hiroshima Bomb was built, and hearing that solemn bell ring live from the service in Hiroshima. It was like a giant alarm clock, a global wake up call. It was part mourning, part warning. I left wondering why we are so deaf to the Peace Bell of Hiroshima, what keeps us from hearing that global mindfulness bell, and what we can do to help one another hear that universal wake up call.


    Maybe more and more of us need to go to Los Alamos for this annual commemoration, to see for ourselves the buildings where we continue to build nuclear weapons, and to come to terms with the reality of Los Alamos. Whatever sense of despair or apathy we might feel, the Peace Bell of Hiroshima has rung once again, calling us to wake up, get moving, keep on marching, and keep on doing what we can to build a global movement to abolish nuclear weapons forever.

  • Nuclear Memories

    This article was originally published by the Federation of American Scientists.

    Dick DudaI was 9 years old in 1945 when the first atomic bomb was detonated above a city. I remember the radio news broadcasts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and how my parents reacted with amazement. I didn’t know what to think.

    I was 11 years old in 1947 when I watched a double feature in a darkened movie theater— a Roy Rogers western with Andy Devine, followed by what I thought was another adventure film, a docudrama on the Manhattan Project called “The Beginning or the End.” The Saturday afternoon audience, filled mainly by school kids, was unusually subdued. This wasn’t fantasy, this was real. I didn’t say anything, but I was troubled.

    I was 26 years old in 1962 when the U.S. and the Soviet Union walked right to the brink of thermonuclear war. I remember when the Soviet ships turned around and everyone took a collective deep breath. I felt like we really dodged a bullet that time.

    I was 50 years old in 1986 when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland, and fumbled the greatest opportunity the world has ever had to rid nuclear weapons. Commentators assessed the summit as an ill-planned failure. I felt a deep sense of loss.

    I was 53 years old in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember how people thought that the threat of nuclear war was over at last. No doubt about it – I felt euphoric!

    I was 65 years old in 2001 when terrorists flew two airplanes into the Twin Towers. Everyone said that the world had changed. I remember thinking, “What if it had been a nuclear bomb instead of just those planes?”

    I was 71 years old in 2007 when George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn published their celebrated Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.” I was surprised by how few people I knew were even aware of it. I thought that this could be a game changer, and I finally started to do something.

    During all those many years, I was well aware of all the effort to control the nuclear genie— the warnings by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, the spearheading of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) by Norman Cousins, the “Ban the Bomb” marches, the Nuclear Freeze movement.

    But I didn’t see how I could make a difference. And I was well aware of how quickly the progress toward nuclear disarmament faded with the end of the Cold War. The 1999 failure of the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty exemplified a decade of ever-worsening developments. Now North Korea has the bomb and the Middle East threatens to become awash with nuclear weapons.

    For the past five years, I have worked locally to promote nuclear disarmament. I know that I am only one person. At age 76, I am keenly aware that fewer and fewer people I meet have actual memories of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don’t know how long it will be before the last nuclear bomb is dismantled. But I will always remember the people who encouraged me to do my part to make a difference – to work to reduce the threat that these weapons still pose to my children, my grandchildren, and future generations everywhere around the world.

  • 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.

  • 2012 Sadako Peace Day Message

    David KriegerToday marks the 67th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  It is the anniversary of a bombing that targeted school children, pre-school children and infants, as well as women and the elderly. 


    When you think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, think of innocent children.


    Sadako was such a child, only two years old when the bomb exploded over Hiroshima.  As she grew older, she became a bright student and a fast runner, but ten years after the bombing she was hospitalized with radiation-induced leukemia. 


    Japanese legend has it that one’s wish will be granted by folding 1,000 paper cranes.  Sadako folded these paper cranes in the hope of fulfilling her wish to regain her health and achieve a peaceful world.  She wrote this poem, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”


    Sadako’s life was cut short by the bomb, but her dream of peace has lived on.  She did not live to become a wife, mother and grandmother.  She did not live to fulfill her dreams.  But her memory has lived on in the hearts of children around the globe.  Today there is a statue of Sadako in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, and throughout the world people express their wish for peace by folding paper cranes.


    Today we gather in this beautiful peace garden named for Sadako and commemorate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with our 18th annual Sadako Peace Day.  We remember Sadako and the countless innocent victims of war and renew our commitment to abolishing nuclear weapons and ending war as a human institution. 


    This may seem utopian, but it is also necessary.  It is our common responsibility and it is the daily work of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. 


    The Secretary-General of the United Nations sent this message to Hiroshima today:


    “The elimination of nuclear weapons is not just a visionary goal, but the most reliable way to prevent their future use.


    “People understand that nuclear weapons cannot be used without indiscriminate effects on civilian populations….


    “Such weapons have no legitimate place in our world.  Their elimination is both morally right and a practical necessity in protecting humanity.


    “The more countries view nuclear weapons as unacceptable and illegitimate, the easier it will be to solve related problems such as proliferation or their acquisition and use by terrorists….


    “In remembering those lost, in recognizing the hibakusha, and in considering the legacy we will leave to future generations, I urge all here today to continue your noble work for a nuclear-weapon-free world.”


    We are honored to have present today a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, Kikuko Otake, who will share with us her memories of what she experienced as a young child.  We also have wonderful poets and musicians and a beautiful, quiet garden for reflection. 


    Thank you for being with us today and for your compassion for those who have been the victims of war, your commitment to building a more peaceful world free of nuclear weapons, and your courage to take action to change the world.

  • 2012 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    Kazumi Matsui8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945. Our hometown was reduced to ashes by a single atomic bomb. The houses we came home to, our everyday lives, the customs we cherished—all were gone: “Hiroshima was no more. The city had vanished. No roads, just a burnt plain of rubble as far as I could see, and sadly, I could see too far. I followed electric lines that had fallen along what I took to be tram rails. The tram street was hot. Death was all around.” That was our city, as seen by a young woman of twenty. That was Hiroshima for all the survivors. The exciting festivals, the playing in boats, the fishing and clamming, the children catching long-armed shrimp—a way of life had disappeared from our beloved rivers.


    Worse yet, the bomb snuffed out the sacred lives of so many human beings: “I rode in a truck with a civil defense team to pick up corpses. I was just a boy, so they told me to grab the ankles. I did, but the skin slipped right off. I couldn’t hold on. I steeled myself, squeezed hard with my fingertips, and the flesh started oozing. A terrible stench. I gripped right down to the bone. With a ‘one-two-three,’ we tossed them into the truck.” As seen in the experience of this 13-year-old boy, our city had become a living hell. Countless corpses lay everywhere, piled on top of each other; amid the moans of unearthly voices, infants sucked at the breasts of dead mothers, while dazed, empty-eyed mothers clutched their dead babies.


    A girl of sixteen lost her whole family, one after the other: “My 7-year-old brother was burned from head to toe. He died soon after the bombing. A month later, my parents died; then, my 13-year-old brother and my 11-year-old sister. The only ones left were myself and my little brother, who was three, and he died later of cancer.” From newborns to grandmothers, by the end of the year, 140,000 precious lives were taken from Hiroshima.


    Hiroshima was plunged into deepest darkness. Our hibakusha experienced the bombing in flesh and blood. Then, they had to live with aftereffects and social prejudice. Even so, they soon began telling the world about their experience. Transcending rage and hatred, they revealed the utter inhumanity of nuclear weapons and worked tirelessly to abolish those weapons. We want the whole world to know of their hardship, their grief, their pain, and their selfless desire.


    The average hibakusha is now over 78. This summer, in response to the many ordinary citizens seeking to inherit and pass on their experience and desire, Hiroshima has begun carefully training official hibakusha successors. Determined never to let the atomic bombing fade from memory, we intend to share with ever more people at home and abroad the hibakusha desire for a nuclear-weapon-free world.


    People of the world! Especially leaders of nuclear-armed nations, please come to Hiroshima to contemplate peace in this A-bombed city.


    This year, Mayors for Peace marked its 30th anniversary. The number of cities calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020 has passed 5,300, and our members now represent approximately a billion people. Next August, we will hold a Mayors for Peace general conference in Hiroshima. That event will convey to the world the intense desire of the overwhelming majority of our citizens for a nuclear weapons convention and elimination of nuclear weapons. The following spring, Hiroshima will host a ministerial meeting of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative comprising ten non-nuclear-weapon states, including Japan. I firmly believe that the demand for freedom from nuclear weapons will soon spread out from Hiroshima, encircle the globe, and lead us to genuine world peace.


    March 11, 2011, is a day we will never forget. A natural disaster compounded by a nuclear power accident created an unprecedented catastrophe. Here in Hiroshima, we are keenly aware that the survivors of that catastrophe still suffer terribly, yet look toward the future with hope. We see their ordeal clearly superimposed on what we endured 67 years ago. I speak now to all in the stricken areas. Please hold fast to your hope for tomorrow. Your day will arrive, absolutely. Our hearts are with you.


    Having learned a lesson from that horrific accident, Japan is now engaged in a national debate over its energy policy, with some voices insisting, “Nuclear energy and humankind cannot coexist.” I call on the Japanese government to establish without delay an energy policy that guards the safety and security of the people. I ask the government of the only country to experience an atomic bombing to accept as its own the resolve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mindful of the unstable situation surrounding us in Northeast Asia, please display bolder leadership in the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons. Please also provide more caring measures for the hibakusha in and out of Japan who still suffer even today, and take the political decision to expand the “black rain areas.”


    Once again, we offer our heartfelt prayers for the peaceful repose of the atomic bomb victims. From our base here in Hiroshima, we pledge to convey to the world the experience and desire of our hibakusha, and do everything in our power to achieve the genuine peace of a world without nuclear weapons.

  • Tadatoshi Akiba to Take Up Duties as MPI Chairman in October

    Tadatoshi Akiba

    The former Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, who recently was named Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, will take up his duties in October 2012.  His first major task is to plan the next meeting of the MPI Framework Forum, which will be held in Berlin in early 2013.

    As President of Mayors for Peace, Professor Akiba developed a network of 5,300 mayors in 153 countries and regions who united in calling for negotiations to start on a nuclear weapons convention. He was Mayor of Hiroshima from 1999 until 2011.  He started his professional career as a mathematics professor in New York before being elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in 1990. David Krieger, Chairman of MPI’s Executive Committee, hailed Akiba, one of the world’s foremost campaigners for the abolition of nuclear weapons, as “an internationally respected leader for his stewardship of Mayors for Peace.”

    Founded in 1998 by eight prominent nuclear disarmament organizations, MPI works with influential middle power countries to bridge the political divide between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, and to advance practical proposals for nuclear disarmament. Akiba will direct MPI’s work, which consists of delegations to capitals, publishing briefs on nuclear disarmament, and organizing and facilitating informal government consultations.

    Since 2005, MPI has brought governments together in informal Article VI Forum consultations to forge an agreed pathway to a nuclear weapons-free world, based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament. MPI has started a new series of consultations, called the “Framework Forum,” for interested governments to start preparatory work leading to negotiations for a global ban on nuclear weapons.

    In addition to being a leading international voice for peace and nuclear disarmament, Akiba championed environmental protection and government transparency.  For his dedication to a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world, he has received many honors, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award (often considered Asia’s Nobel Prize), the Sean MacBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

    Senator Douglas Roche, founding Chairman of MPI, welcomed the appointment of Akiba: “With his deep knowledge of nuclear disarmament issues, unending commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons, immense personal prestige, and outstanding international reputation, Tad Akiba will lift up MPI and make it an even more effective instrument helping to produce a nuclear weapons-free world.”

    MPI’s co-sponsors include: Albert Schweitzer Institute, Global Security Institute, International Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

  • For a World Without Wars or Nuclear Weapons

    The Great East Japan Earthquake that hit the region on March 11 last year caused the catastrophic damage, which reminded us of the A-bomb disaster in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that fell upon us Hibakusha. The radiation damage from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, which shook the entire world, has put us into anxiety, distrust and irritation without any perspective for convergence even after a year and half have passed. In the 67th year since the atomic bombing, once again we are facing the terrifying effects of nuclear damage.


    The Hibakusha, who have continued to carry on the message “No more Hibakusha,” are filled with pain and anger.


    Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.I am a Hibakusha, a victim of the first nuclear war in the history of the world, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. At the time, I was 7 years old, a second grader in primary school.


    At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, I was inside the wooden school building. Suddenly I felt a blinding flash. The next moment, the ceiling of the building collapsed and sharp splinters of windowpanes flew all around. They stuck into the walls, desks and floor of the classroom, and also into my skin. I don’t remember how much time passed before I crawled out of the room to the corridor, leaving behind my classmates trapped between the beams. In the school infirmary I had the glass splinters removed from my skin, but there were no medicines, gauze or bandages to treat my injuries.


    My father managed to come to the school to find me. On my way home, carried on my father’s back, I witnessed hell on earth. I saw a man with burned and peeled skin dangling from his body. A mother was carrying a baby, which was burned-black and looked like charcoal. She herself was heavily burned all over her body and was trying to flee from the place, almost crawling on the ground. Others lost their sight, their eyeballs popped out, or ran around trying to escape, while holding their protruding intestines in their hands. More and more people tried to cling on to us, saying, “Give me water, water, water…” Unable to give any kind of help to them, we just left them there and hurried home.


    Shortly before the atomic bombing, my house was located near ground zero, and I used to go to school about only 350 meters away. But our family was forced to move away from the city center by order of the government, and I changed school too. If we had stayed in our old place, I would not be alive to tell you the story. Later I learned that about 400 pupils in my old school were burned and killed instantly by the bomb, leaving no traces, not even their ashes.


    When I arrived home 3.5 kilometers from the blast center, I found the roof of the house blown away by the blast and fragments of glass scattered all around. “Black Rain” fell into the house, and traces of the “Black Rain” on the wall remained for a long time.


    Neighbors of our old house near ground zero and our relatives began to arrive, seeking help and shelter. Among them was my favorite cousin, who was like a big sister for me. She had been mobilized to work around the area 500 meters from the blast center when the bomb exploded. Half of her face, her entire back and her right leg were severely burned, sore and raw. In the intense summer heat, her burns quickly festered. Flies swarmed and laid their eggs in her flesh. Soon maggots bred and crawled around over her body. All I could do for my beloved cousin was to pick these maggots out and wipe her oozing body. She often cried, “Ouch…oh it hurts,” but her voice became lower and lower, and on the morning of the third day — probably it was August 9 — she breathed her last in my arms. She was 14 years old. Another cousin, who was in fifth grade of primary school, was suffering from diarrhea, although he had no injuries or burns. About a week later, he bled from his ears and nose, vomited blood clots from his mouth and died suddenly. One after the other, several of my uncles and aunts followed my cousins within a matter of month.


    Their deaths were not caused by any illness. They were killed by the atomic bomb used in the war.


    Autumn breezes began to blow and I found my hair starting to fall out. My parents did everything possible to save me, using folk medicines and other means. They later died of cancer. I am so grateful to my parents. I believe I have been able to survive to this day thanks to their love.
    　
    However, the atomic bomb continued to afflict me in my later life. Whenever I tried to get a job or get married, I suffered from prejudice and discrimination just because I was a Hibakusha. When I became pregnant, I was tremendously worried, wondering if I would give birth to a baby who would be seen as a Hibakusha’s child. Around that period, many Hibakusha could not get married, or gave up hope of getting married. Even after marriage, they often suffered repeated stillbirths and miscarriages, or lost their children prematurely due to illness.


    One of my close Hibakusha friends went through 6 stillbirths and miscarriages. Her husband beat her, saying that it was because she was a Hibakusha that they could not have children. She used to say she had a racking pain in her hip, and eventually she died.


    The atomic bomb completely deprived us of ordinary daily lives for human beings.


    It is most painful for me now to speak about my daughter. She was suddenly taken with cancer. She made a tearful and difficult decision to take a major operation, believing that it would make her healthy again. After the 13-hour operation, in fear of the recurrence or metastasis of cancer, she was going through the treatment and rehabilitation, despite great physical and mental pains. But she died abruptly, only 4 months after she was first diagnosed.


    When I got pregnant with her, after much wavering over the possible radiation effect on the baby, I finally decided to give birth to her. So her death has given me deep sorrow and vexation. But now, a year after her death, I am determined to go forward, as I believe she is always with me, encouraging and supporting me.


    It is still not proven whether a second generation Hibakusha is more likely to suffer cancer or not. But it is clear that radiation would affect the human genes, which is a cause for big anxiety among second and third generation Hibakusha.


    The Hibakusha are, even without any physical problems, doomed to suffer, to be distressed, to moan and get angry at every important junction in their lives. The aftereffects of the atomic bomb continue to bring hardships to the survivors across the board throughout their lives, physically, mentally and in their living conditions.


    Such experiences as ours should never be inflicted on any of you, nor on anyone in the world. It is inevitable that nuclear bombs would cause untold damage to human beings if they would ever be used again whether on purpose or by accident.


    We now demand of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states that they should see with their own eyes the reality of the damage caused on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They claim that they are for deterrence. However, deterrence means a threat based on the possible actual use of these weapons. We the Hibakusha refuse to accept any threat or use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are clearly inhumane weapons. Nuclear weapons are weapons of the devil, which cannot coexist with humanity.


    The world is still loaded with more than 20,000 nuclear warheads. Each one of them is said to be dozens of times of more destructive than the Hiroshima-type bomb.


    That nuclear weapons exist on earth should not be allowed from the humanitarian point of view.


    Dear friends, the Hibakusha do not have much time left. Thank you for listening today. Let us work hard together to realize a world without nuclear weapons, with “No more Hibakusha” as the goal. In particular, we have a high expectation for young people.


    We hope that the 2015 NPT Review Conference will achieve significant results. On my part, I will also continue to tell about the damage caused by nuclear weapons as long as I live.


    No More Hiroshimas. No More Nagasakis. No More War.


    Thank you.

  • Were the Atomic Bombings Necessary?

    David KriegerOn August 14, 1945, Japan surrendered and World War II was over.  American policy makers have argued that the atomic bombs were the precipitating cause of the surrender.  Historical studies of the Japanese decision, however, reveal that what the Japanese were most concerned with was the Soviet Union’s entry into the war.  Japan surrendered with the understanding that the emperor system would be retained.  The US agreed to do what Truman had been advised to do before the bombings:  it signaled to the Japanese that they would be allowed to retain the emperor.  This has left historians to speculate that the war could have ended without either the use of the two atomic weapons on Japanese cities or an Allied invasion of Japan.


    The US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, even without the use of the atomic bombs, without the Soviet Union entering the war and without an Allied invasion of Japan, the war would have ended before December 31, 1945 and, in all likelihood, before November 1, 1945.  Prior to the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US was destroying Japanese cities at will with conventional bombs.  The Japanese were offering virtually no resistance.  The US dropped atomic bombs on a nation that had been largely defeated and some of whose leaders were seeking terms of surrender.


    Despite strong evidence that the atomic bombings were not responsible for ending the war with Japan, most Americans, particularly those who lived through World War II, believe that they were.  Many World War II era servicemen who were in the Pacific or anticipated being shipped there believed that the bombs saved them from fighting hard battles on the shores of Japan, as had been fought on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  What they did not take into account was that the Japanese were trying to surrender, that the US had broken the Japanese codes and knew they were trying to surrender, and that, had the US accepted their offer, the war could have ended without the use of the atomic bombs.


    Most high ranking Allied military leaders were appalled by the use of the atomic bombs.  General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe, recognized that Japan was ready to surrender and said, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” General Hap Arnold, commander of the US Army Air Corps pointed out, “Atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”


    Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.  The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.  In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages.  Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”


    What Truman had described as “the greatest thing in history” was actually, according to his own military leaders, an act of unparalleled cowardice, the mass annihilation of men, women and children.  The use of the atomic bombs was the culmination of an air war fought against civilians in Germany and Japan, an air war that showed increasing contempt for the lives of civilians and for the laws of war. 


    The end of the war was a great relief to those who had fought for so long.  There were nuclear scientists, though, who now regretted what they had created and how their creations had been used.  One of these was Leo Szilard, the Hungarian émigré physicist who had warned Einstein of the possibility of the Germans creating an atomic weapon first and of the need for the US to begin a bomb project.  Szilard had convinced Einstein to send a letter of warning to Roosevelt, which led at first to a small project to explore the potential of uranium to sustain a chain reaction and then to the Manhattan Project that resulted in the creation of the first atomic weapons.


    Szilard did his utmost to prevent the bomb from being used against Japanese civilians.  He wanted to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt, but Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.  He next tried to meet with the new president, Harry Truman, but Truman sent him to Spartanburg, South Carolina to talk with his mentor in the Senate, Jimmy Byrnes, who was dismissive of Szilard.  Szilard then tried to organize the scientists in the Manhattan Project to appeal for a demonstration of the bomb rather than immediately using it on a Japanese city.  The appeal was stalled by General Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, and did not reach President Truman until after the atomic bombs were used.


    The use of the bomb caused many other scientists to despair as well.  Albert Einstein deeply regretted that he had written to President Roosevelt.  He did not work on the Manhattan Project, but he had used his influence to encourage the start of the American bomb project.  Einstein, like Szilard, believed that the purpose of the U.S. bomb project was to deter the use of a German bomb.  He was shocked that, once created, the bomb was used offensively against the Japanese.  Einstein would spend the remaining ten years of his life speaking out against the bomb and seeking its elimination.  He famously said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

  • 2011 Evening for Peace Message

    Our theme tonight is “From Hiroshima to Hope.” 


    The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the end of a terrible war, more costly in human life than any previous war in human history.  The atomic bombings also marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age, an age characterized by its immense destructive power, a power that could leave civilization in shambles.


    In a mad arms race between the US and USSR between 1945 and 1990, nuclear weapons were created and tested that were thousands of times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the height of the nuclear arms race in 1986, there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with humanity precariously balanced on the rim of a nuclear precipice.  Today, more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, there are still more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries.


    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation


    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was created in 1982 to confront the challenges of this new era dominated by nuclear threat.  Our mission at the Foundation is: “To educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.” We do this in many action-oriented ways, including through our Action Alert Network, Peace Leadership Program and this Evening for Peace.


    We hope that all of you with us this evening, and particularly the students, will be inspired to become Peace Leaders.  We need you and the world needs you.


    In this past year, the Foundation held a conference on the Dangers of Nuclear Deterrence at which we took a hard look at the myths surrounding nuclear deterrence and developed the Santa Barbara Declaration, Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action. This Declaration was placed in the Congressional Record by Representative Lois Capps.


    We also worked with the Swiss government in holding a conference at the United Nations in Geneva on the need to lower the alert status of nuclear weapons.  There are still some 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.  This is truly MAD.


    We held another conference in Geneva this year supported by the government of Kazakhstan on the need to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force.  President Clinton signed this treaty in 1996, but the Senate voted down ratification in 1999 and still has not ratified it 15 years after it was signed. 


    The Foundation’s membership has grown to nearly 50,000. We have more than 2,500 participants in our Peace Leadership program. More than 600,000 unique viewers visit our websites annually. We have sent more than 70,000 messages on timely nuclear issues to political leaders this year through our Action Alert Network, and we’ve had some recent successes, including stopping a missile launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the International Day of Peace.


    We have also networked with like-minded organizations throughout the world on our common goal of achieving a more peaceful and nuclear weapon-free world.  In addition, 12 hardworking and committed interns from around the country have participated in many aspects of the Foundation’s work in 2011.


    The Hibakusha


    In all our work at the Foundation, we have taken strength from the spirit of Hiroshima and its survivors, the hibakusha.  Hiroshima is more than a city. As the first city to be attacked by a nuclear bomb, it is a symbol of the wanton destructiveness of nuclear weapons.  Along with the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki three days later, some 220,000 people died by the end of 1945 as a result of the two atomic bombings.


    The survivors of the bombings, the hibakusha, have had an unconquerable spirit of hope and commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. They have not only rebuilt their flattened cities and their lives, but they have taken it upon themselves to speak out so that their past does not become the future of some other city or of humanity as a whole. The hibakusha have said, “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist.” They have stood firmly for a human future, seeking the abolition of all nuclear weapons. 


    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation we share the passion, commitment and hope of the hibakusha for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. 


    Shigeko Sasamori, thank you for all you’ve done.  Your life and the lives of Kaz Suyeishi and Kikuko Otake, and all the other hibakusha you represent this evening give us hope and strength to persevere. 


    So does the life of our next honoree.


    Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba


    It is now my privilege to introduce Tadatoshi Akiba, the recipient of the Foundation’s 2011 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.  In his early career, he was a professor of mathematics at Tufts University and later a professor of humanities at Hiroshima Shudo University.  He served in the Japanese Diet, Japan’s House of Representatives, from 1990 to 1999.  He then served as the Mayor of Hiroshima from 1999 to 2011.  During his 12 years as mayor, he served as the president of Mayors for Peace, and oversaw the growth of this organization from some 440 members to nearly 5,000.  Under Mayor Akiba’s leadership, Mayors for Peace initiated the 2020 Vision Campaign, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2020, and also the campaign, Cities Are Not Targets, a petition drive that asserts, “No!  You may not target cities.  You may not target children.”
    For his work for peace, Mayor Akiba has received many awards, including the 2010 Ramon Magsaysay Award, also known as the Asian Nobel Prize.


    I have known Mayor Akiba since shortly after he became mayor, when I visited him in Hiroshima.  I have admired his energy and eloquence on behalf of the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Mayors for Peace.  He has given leadership to mayors throughout the world to take a stand for abolishing nuclear weapons.  He is an honorable man who is dedicated to eliminating the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life. 


    On behalf of the Directors and members of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, I am pleased to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2011 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba.