Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapon

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • In the Shadow of Hiroshima

    On 6 August 1945, in total disregard of the basic tenets of science and civilization, the first Atom Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which created a new war paradigm: destroy an entire city. On 9 August, the second atom bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. The sole purpose of creating the nuclear war science was to destroy and dominate other human beings. The law of war was, for 5000 years human history, not to attack unarmed civilians. Women, children, the sick and wounded were always protected. There were thousands of wounded war victims and the sick in Hiroshima and Nagasaki hospitals. Tens of thousands of unarmed citizens irrespective of gender, class, race, region and religion were killed instantly. This law of warfare was violated by a technically advanced nation that claimed, “In God We Trust” and swore by the Christian morality.

    Today, in spite of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there are about 26,000 nuclear warheads mostly in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. Also, there are up to 2,000,000 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). It takes just 15-24 kilograms of HEU to make a nuclear bomb. There are 28 countries with the capacity to build at least one bomb and 12 countries with the capacity to make 20 bombs. Moreover, all “peaceful” nuclear power reactors add to ‘spent’ fuel which can be reprocessed to produce weapons grade plutonium. According to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, some 500,000 kilograms of plutonium is presently in global stockpiles. This is a threat to world peace and security.

    The dilemma of our Nuclear Age is that while “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself,” according to George Bernard Shaw. Today, we recall the heroic act of Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to nuclear weapons. But it was his whistle blowing against the nuclear arms race that guided Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to an end. Dr. Sakharov had challenged the power of the state in the cause of world peace. In the history of science, the role of Sakharov proved decisive in defending human rights and civilization.

    My country, India, is committed to a No First Use doctrine, but that does not prevent some reckless enemy or terrorist from striking first with a nuclear bomb. Pakistan’s nuclear program is India-specific and there is possibility of a Pakistani bomb falling in the hands of jihadis. Therefore, the Indian establishment considered it prudent to go for a “credible nuclear deterrence policy,” which intends to survive an initial atomic attack and be ready for an overwhelming retaliatory nuclear strike. Our credible nuclear deterrence is in place with the “specialized forces to tackle nuclear threat in all its dimensions”. But Indian Parliament has not debated the nuclear policy. Nor has there been any national debate, or any popular anti-nuclear campaign in the country. The patriotism of any whistleblower is questioned and no scientist can speak the truth.

    But by building the credible nuclear deterrence, we are repeating the folly of the Cold War pundits who in 1950s regarded nuclear weapons as the currency of power. By 1985, Moscow and Washington both had stockpiled 50,000 nuclear warheads with total Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) capability ten times over. However, by the 80s, concerned scientists established the Nuclear Nights and Nuclear Winter paradigm, declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be fought, nor can it be won.” But the Nuclear Non-Proliferation policy posed a complex and costly problem of decommissioning and safe keeping of thousands of useless but life-threatening nuclear warheads.

    Historically, Hiroshima remains a sad reminder of misuse of science. Science became identified with death and destruction. “We, scientists, have a great deal to answer for,” lamented Nobel Peace Prize recipient the late Joseph Rotblat. It is also a sad reality that the most civilized citizens around the globe still support the nuclear arms race. Admittedly, the scientists’ fraternity cannot live in isolation free from chauvinistic effects when the public and the political leaders think of nuclear weapons in terms of old warfare. But nuclear weapons have the potential of total destruction of all nations. As David Krieger of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation rightly says, “One bomb could destroy one city. A few bombs could destroy a country and a few (more) dozen nuclear bombs could reduce civilization to total ruins.” In a nuclear war there will be no victor, no vanquished.

    On this day of Hiroshima and Nagasaki let us remind ourselves that nuclear weapons are not selectively discriminatory. In fact, they are inclusively destructive to all –life irrespective of gender, caste, creed, race, region or religion. Still the mad nuclear arms race is high on the agenda of most super-patriots and religious fanatics. Concerned scientists have, therefore, appealed to the political leaders and governments of all colors and creed to give up the nuclear weapons.

    This Hiroshima day, we welcome the news that the U.S. President Barack Obama and the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have signed an agreement to further reduce the stockpiles of nuclear warheads. President Obama is expected to support the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and strengthening the United Nations.
    It was George Santayana, the philosopher who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” On this Hiroshima Day, we call upon the leaders of India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to desist the nuclear temptation. We also appeal to the Indian Parliament to declare the entire South Asian sub-continent a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.

    Professor Dhirendra Sharma is author of India’s Nuclear Estate and Convener of Concerned Scientists and Philosophers.