information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
6 Août 2015
August 6, 2015
A woman, right, who lost her mother- and sister-in-law to the Hiroshima atomic bomb prays with her daughter, second from right, and great-granddaughter, second from left at front, in front of the Memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, on Aug. 6, 2015. The day marked 70 years since an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. (Mainichi)
HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) -- Hiroshima marked the 70th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city on Thursday, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui urging world leaders to renew their resolve to abolish nuclear weapons and pursue peace as embodied in Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
At a memorial ceremony in the western city, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined Matsui in highlighting the role Japan should fulfill as the only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, but did not touch on the ongoing defense policy shift that has drawn criticism from atomic bomb survivors as eroding Japan's pacifism.
After the event, representatives of local atomic bomb survivors' groups directly pressed Abe to retract controversial security bills that would end the country's ban on exercising the right to collective self-defense, or defend allies under armed attack even when Japan itself is not attacked.
"We want you to immediately withdraw the policy to allow the use of the right to collective self-defense, which would draw our people into war," one of the groups said in a statement. But Abe told them in a meeting that the bills in parliament are essential to "preventing war" and that the country's "course as a peaceful state will never change."
In sweltering heat, around 55,000 people gathered at the Peace Memorial Park and held a moment of silence at 8:15 a.m., the exact moment the atomic bomb detonated over the city on Aug. 6, 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year.
Also present were representatives from a record 100 nations, including the United States, which in an unprecedented move sent a high-level official from Washington to join the event along with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy.
In the Peace Declaration read at the ceremony, Matsui did not directly mention the security bills. Instead, he encouraged world leaders to demonstrate their "love of humanity" and meet "tirelessly to talk," saying that doing so 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," he said.
Matsui also called for the need to promote worldwide "the path to true peace revealed by the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution," whose Article 9 forever renounces war and the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.
Given that Japan will host next year's summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, Matsui reiterated his hope that U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders will visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to hear firsthand accounts of atomic bomb survivors.
According to U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner, sending to the memorial ceremony Rose Gottemoeller, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, underscores Washington's eagerness to work with Japan to advance Obama's goal of realizing a world without nuclear weapons, which he advocated in his Prague speech in 2009.
As for Japan's role in the pursuit, the prime minister said in the speech that the government will take "realistic and practical" steps towards a nuclear-weapons-free world and seek to make the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons widely known.
Abe also said he will introduce a new draft resolution on the elimination of nuclear weapons to the U.N. General Assembly in the autumn, which sources close to the matter say may include a call on world leaders to visit the atomic-bombed cities.
A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9 the same year, killing an estimated 70,000 people. Japan surrendered six days later, bringing an end to World War II.
The number of hibakusha in and outside Japan -- atomic bomb survivors with documents certifying that they experienced the terrible bombing 70 years ago -- stood at 183,519 in March this year, nearly half of its peak of 372,264 in 1980, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. Their average age exceeded 80 for the first time this year.
Hailing survivors as "unparalleled champions of peace," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said in a statement read out during the ceremony that the United Nations will stand with the survivors, determined to realize their vision of eliminating nuclear weapons.
But the ideal faces an uphill battle, with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons estimated to exist in the world at present, most of them in U.S. and Russian arsenals.
In the declaration, Matsui urged the Japanese government to "guide all states" toward discussions on outlawing nuclear arsenals, although Tokyo has been cautious about supporting the move as the country has relied on the U.S. nuclear deterrence for protection.
From the early morning, atomic bomb survivors and other citizens visited the park near the hypocenter to mourn the people who perished in the bombing and hope for peace.
Toshio Fujimura, an 84-year-old survivor who lives in Ehime Prefecture, said, "If war occurs again and an atomic bomb were dropped more people could die....War is miserable and sad."
Janet McKinlay, a 61-year-old former teacher from Canada, could hardly hold back her tears as she visited the park to attend the ceremony with a friend who was born on the day of the bombing. "It is so horrible what people do to each other. I guess we're all here wishing for peace."
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