MSNBC

August 6, 2003

Hiroshima marks nuclear anniversary

City laments nuclear trend, 58 years after bomb was dropped

HIROSHIMA, Japan, Aug. 6 — Hiroshima marked the anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing on Wednesday with condemnation of a global trend toward nuclear proliferation and invitations to President George W. Bush and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to visit the Japanese city destroyed in a nuclear inferno 58 years ago.

IN AN annual ritual of remembrance for the more than 230,000 people who ultimately died from the blast, a crowd of thousands including survivors, children and dignitaries gathered to pray at Hiroshima’s Peace Park, close to where the bomb was dropped.

The ceremony comes just days after North Korea agreed to talks on its secret nuclear program, following months of tension that erupted last October and saw the secretive communist state pull out of a key non-proliferation treaty in January.

“The world without nuclear weapons and beyond war that bomb survivors have sought for so long appears to be slipping under a thick cover of dark clouds that they fear at any minute could become mushroom clouds,” Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba told the crowd.

At 8:15 a.m., the exact time the bomb exploded on Aug. 6, 1945, the crowd stood and bowed their heads as the Peace Bell tolled and doves were released.

Cicadas shrilled in heavy summer heat, said to be like that of the day the bomb was dropped, and people made offerings of folded paper cranes and chrysanthemums as fragrant clouds of incense smoke rose.

The United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Japan surrendered six days later.

Akiba criticized what he called a sharp world tilt toward war and a serious weakening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which he described as being on the “verge of collapse.”

“As the U.S.-U.K. led war on Iraq made clear, the assertion that war is peace is now being trumpeted as truth,” he said.

And his harshest words were for the United States.

“The chief cause (of the weaker treaty) is the U.S. nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini-nukes and other so-called ‘usable nuclear weapons,’ appears to worship nuclear weapons as God.”

NUCLEAR REALITY

       Akiba called on Bush and the leaders of all nuclear-weapons states, along with Kim Jong Il, to visit Hiroshima and face the reality of what nuclear weapons can do. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pledged to uphold Japan’s pacifist constitution and non-nuclear stance.

“We will work for nuclear arms reduction with all our strength,” he told the crowd.

But Hiroshima survivors, whose average age is now over 71, worry that fading memories of the blast will lead Japan toward an increasing military role, particularly as it moves to support its key ally, the United States.

Just last month, Japan enacted a controversial law to send troops abroad to help rebuild Iraq in what would be its largest post-war military dispatch.

“The whole world is moving away from peace,” lamented Sunao Tsuboi, who was a 20-year-old university student when the bomb was dropped. “Even in Japan, there seems to be a growing sense that in some cases, there may be no way to avoid war.”

In addition, some feel that growing worries over neighboring North Korea could push Japan toward eventually having its own nuclear weapons.

“It would be really bad if North Korea had nuclear weapons,” said 15-year-old Hiroaki Ishida, a Hiroshima student. ”We must avoid war.”
But with the Hiroshima bombing nearly six decades in the past, indifference appears to be growing among many Japanese.

“I don’t know war or the bomb,” said 55-year-old Kazuo Morimoto, from the central Japanese prefecture of Gifu. “Yes, I can think ’how terrible,’ but how much impact does it really have on peoples’ lives today?”

Morimoto, who is unemployed, said the majority of Japanese have more pressing things to worry about these days.

“The chances of North Korea launching an atomic weapon at us are probably one in ten thousand. But being able to earn a living tomorrow is a much bigger question.”