With calls for world peace and abolition of nuclear weapons,
about 55,000 people from Japan and abroad gathered in Hiroshima on
Saturday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the US atomic
bombing of the western Japanese city in 1945.??
In a peace declaration read in a one-hour memorial service at
the packed Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba
vowed to act upon the commitment, inherited by the atomic-bomb
survivors, to abolish nuclear weapons and reaffirm the
responsibility never to "repeat the evil."
Akiba quoted the word from an inscription on the Cenotaph for
the A-bomb Victims, which was damaged by a right-wing extremist
late last month who said he did not like the phrase because it was
the US that dropped the atomic bomb.
Although Japanese right-wingers do not like the phrase, the
widely known fact is that Japan launched the brutal aggression war
against its Asian neighboring countries and Japanese aggressors
made abundant atrocities on Asian people.
The US dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on
August 6 and August 9, 1945 respectively in order to force Japanese
militarists to stop their evil crimes in China, South Korea and
other Asian countries. On August 15, Japan announced surrender at
discretion and World War II ended.
Similar to the right-wingers' view on history issues, Japan's
House of Representatives on Tuesday adopted a resolution marking
the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, only making an
emphasis of Japan's damages from US atomic bombing but excluding
the primary content about Japan's colonial ruling and aggression
atrocities on Asian people during the war.
Japan's opposition parties opposed the resolution, saying Japan
should focus on severe sufferings and damages of Asian people
resulted from the country's past "war of aggression" and "colonial
ruling."
Speaking before the audience, Akiba urged the government to
inherit the commitment of the hibakusha (atomic-bomb
survivors) to the abolition of nuclear weapons and realization of
genuine world peace, and take action to never repeat evil such as
the past aggression war.
Toward such an end, Akiba urged the UN to establish a committee
to try to realize and maintain a nuclear weapon-free world, saying
there is a need for such a committee in the wake of the breakdown
in talks of the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty in May in New York.
"We propose that the First Committee of the UN General Assembly,
which will meet in October, establish a special committee to
deliberate and plan for the achievement and maintenance of a
nuclear weapon-free world," he said, adding he hopes to see Japan
play a key role there.
The mayor added that he hopes the General Assembly will act on
recommendations from this special committee "adopting by the year
2010 specific steps leading toward the elimination of nuclear
weapons by 2020."
The declaration comes as an urgent call for the world to
redouble its efforts on disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation
after the NPT talks, held every five years, ended without
substantive agreement, and in light of nearly 30,000 existing
nuclear warheads and growing nuclear threats, especially nuclear
terrorism.
Also referring to the aftermath of collapsed NPT talks, UN
Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe
delivered a message from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who
warned the global community that efforts must be intensified to
work for a nuclear weapon-free world amid threats of nuclear
terrorism and secret networks trafficking nuclear materials and
technology.
"We still live in a world where tens of thousands of nuclear
weapons remain, many of them on hair-trigger alert ... without
concerted action, we may face a cascade of nuclear proliferation,"
Annan said in the message.
In a more in-depth speech, House of Representatives Speaker
Yohei Kono took up the monument's epitaph, whose Japanese word
"ayamachi," meaning error, is translated in English as "the
evil."
Kono said the word refers to two historical facts. One is that
Japan made the mistake of "depriving Korea of its independence and
trying to control China", and the other is that "the human race
used the inhuman weapon of nuclear arm on the same human race."
In his address, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed
to maintain the Constitution and Japan's three avowed principles of
not producing, possessing or allowing nuclear weapons on its
soil.
(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2005)