NUCLEAR-ARMED NATIONS MUST WORK TO TOWARDS GLOBAL BAN
▶ Nagasaki marks 75th anniversary of US bombing with appeal to world leaders
The Japanese city of Nagasaki yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombing, with the mayor and survivors urging world leaders to do more for a nuclear weapons ban.
At 11.02am, the time in 1945 that the B-29 bomber Bockscar dropped a 4.5-tonne plutonium bomb nicknamed Fat Man, Nagasaki survivors and other participants observed a minute’s silence to honour more than 70,000 killed.
The August 9, bombing came three days after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the world’s first nuclear attack, that killed 140,000 people.
On August 15, Japan surrendered, ending the Second World War.
At the event at Nagasaki Peace Park, scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Tomihisa Taue read a peace declaration in which he raised concerns that nuclear states had in recent years retreated from disarmament efforts.
Instead, states were upgrading and miniaturising nuclear weapons for easier use, he said.
Mr Taue singled out the US and Russia for increasing risks by scrapping the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987.
“As a result, the threat of nuclear weapons being used is increasingly becoming real,” Mr Taue said.
Noting that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into force 50 years ago, Mr Taue urged the US and Russia to show a “workable way” towards their nuclear disarmament at the treaty review next year.
He said “the true horror of nuclear weapons has not yet been adequately conveyed to the world at large” despite the struggle and efforts of hibakusha, atomic bombing survivors, to make Nagasaki the last site of a nuclear attack.
He also urged Japan’s government and politicians to quickly sign the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe repeatedly refused to sign the treaty, saying Japan’s approach is not to take sides but to encourage dialogue between nuclear and non-nuclear states to achieve a total nuclear ban.
Survivors and anti-war groups said Japan was virtually siding with the US and other nuclear states.
Yesterday, Mr Abe repeated Japan’s position, citing “a severe national security environment and a wide gap between the two sides on nuclear disarmament”.
“Among the nuclear weapon states and countries under the nuclear umbrella, there have been voices stating that it is too early for such a treaty. That is not so,” Mr Taue said. “Nuclear arms reductions are far too late in coming.”
While Tokyo renounced possession, production or hosting of nuclear weapons, as a US ally Japan hosts 50,000 US troops and is protected by the US nuclear umbrella.
The post-Second World War security arrangement complicated the push to get Japan to sign the treaty as it beefs up its military to deal with threats from North Korea and China, among others.
Survivors expressed a growing sense of urgency to tell their stories, in the hope that younger generations would continue efforts towards establishing a world free of nuclear weapons.
“There is not much time left for us survivors,” said Shigemi Fukabori, 89.
He was a 14-year-old pupil working at a shipyard when Nagasaki was bombed.
“I’m determined to keep telling my story so that Nagasaki will be the last place on Earth to have suffered an atomic attack,” he said.
Mr Fukabori, who lost four siblings in the attack, said he had not forgotten the charred remains, bombed-out street cars and the badly injured survivors asking for help and water as he ran to his house behind Urakami Cathedral, which was heavily damaged.
“We don’t want anyone else to have to go through this,” he said.
“Nagasaki bears a responsibility as a witness of catastrophic results the nuclear weapon caused to humanity and the environment,” Mr Fukabori said in his speech at the ceremony, representing the Nagasaki survivors.
“I hope as many people as possible will join us, especially the young generations, to inherit our baton of peace and keep running.”
Many peace events, including survivors’ talks leading up to the anniversary, were cancelled because of the pandemic, but some survivors teamed up with students and pacifist groups to speak at online events.
Survivor Shigemi Fukabori said it was Nagasaki’s responsibility to bear witness to nuclear warfare