Hiroshima marks A-bomb 74th anniversary
Abe ignores calls to join UN nuclear pact
TOKYO: Hiroshima marked the 74th anniversary of its atomic bombing by the United States yesterday, with the city’s Mayor Kazumi Matsui putting pressure on the Japanese government to join a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons in his peace declaration speech.
But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declined to accept the request, saying the treaty does not reflect the reality of security. Japan has refused to participate in the treaty, along with other countries under the US nuclear umbrella, as have the world’s nuclearweapon states.
“I call on the government of the only country to experience a nuclear weapon in war to accede to the hibakusha’s [atomic bomb survivors] request that the TPNW be signed and ratified,” Mr Matsui said in the annual declaration at the memorial ceremony — referring to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was passed in July 2017 with the support of 122 nations.
“I urge Japan’s leaders to manifest the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution by displaying leadership in taking the next step toward a world free from nuclear weapons.”
For the past two years, Mr Matsui had stopped short of explicitly demanding that Japan join the treaty, citing his wish to not make political capital from the peace declaration.
The treaty is not yet in force, since it has not been ratified by the required 50 states.
Holding a press conference after attending the ceremony, Mr Abe said the treaty is “not based on the real aspects of security”.
In a speech delivered at the ceremony, he did not mention the treaty, only saying Japan will serve tenaciously as a “mediator between nuclearweapon states and non-nuclear weapon states” and “take the lead in making such efforts” in the international community.
Efforts to abolish nuclear weapons have been increasingly complicated by developments surrounding nuclear powers.
This year’s anniversary came after the US on Friday formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a major nuclear arms control pact with Russia signed in 1987, raising fears of a new arms race.
The move, combined with other pressing issues such as Iran’s nuclear activity and the denuclearisation of North Korea, could add to global uncertainty before governments review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the keystone of the international nuclear disarmament regime, next spring.
Attended by some 50,000 people and representatives from about 90 countries including the US, Russia and Britain, the annual ceremony took place at the Peace Memorial Park near Ground Zero.
“Around the world today,” Mr Matsui said, “we see selfcentred nationalism in ascendance, tensions heightened by international exclusivity and rivalry, with nuclear disarmament at a standstill.”
The power of individuals is weak, he said, but added there have been many examples of collective strength achieving desired goals.
“Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit,” the mayor said, quoting Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s nonviolent independence movement against British rule.
He pointed out that “coming generations must never dismiss the atomic bombings and the war as mere events of the past”.
A moment of silence was observed at 8.15am, the exact time on Aug 6, 1945, when a uranium-core atomic bomb named “Little Boy” dropped by a US bomber exploded above Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of that year.
A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug 9 the same year and Japan surrendered six days later, bringing World War II to an end.
The combined number of surviving hibakusha from both bombings stood at 145,844 as of March.