Global Nuclear Disarmament Urged on Atomic Bomb 60th Anniversary

HIROSHIMA, Japan, August 8, 2005 (ENS) - Saturday was a solemn day in Hiroshima. Thousands of people gathered to commemorate the days 60 years ago when the United States ended World War II by dropping the world's first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, on August 6, and Nagasaki, on August 9. In a peace declaration read at the Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima's mayor urged the United Nations to establish a committee to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.

"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," said Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba.

About 140,000 people were killed by the bombs, either directly or as a result of radiation sickness.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba is also president of Mayors for Peace (Photo courtesy Nuclear Age Peace Foundation)

The world must take action in view of existing nuclear arsenals and growing nuclear threats, especially nuclear terrorism, Akiba said.

The world could face "a cascade of nuclear proliferation" unless it takes concerted action to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading to other states or falling into the hands of terrorist networks, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned in a message delivered at the Peace Memorial Ceremony by Nobuyasu Abe, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs.

Although no nuclear weapon had been used again, "We are witnessing continued efforts to strengthen and modernize nuclear arsenals and the risk that such weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists and other non-state actors," Annan said.

Expressing his disappointment that the nonproliferation talks ended with no substantive agreement, Annan challenged world leaders, due to gather at next month's 2005 World Summit in New York, to use the occasion to break the deadlock on the most pressing challenges in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

"Today, we recall the tragedies that occurred here and in Nagasaki: we resolve to act on the lessons of those terrible events; we reiterate our determination to spare no effort to build a world free of nuclear weapons," Annan's message said.

Thousands of people attended the memorial service for Hiroshima's atom bomb victims. (Photo courtesy Hiroshima A-Bomb Photo Museum)

In the United States, no official recognition of the 60th anniversary was made.

Unofficially, U.S. peace campaigners, Buddhist monks, and atomic bomb survivors joined in dozens of events across the country to memorialize the dead and demand an end to nuclear weapons.

On August 6th, demonstrations at the Nevada Test Site, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, memorialized the victims of nuclear technology and weaponry - from American down-winders who were sickened by the fallout of U.S. above-ground nuclear testing to hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hibakusha - survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - visited nuclear weapons research and production sites to deliver their message: "No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis! Abolish Nuclear Weapons Now!"

"Nuclear arms are the very height of violence and cruelty. We condemn the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however we have never demanded retaliation," said Satoru Konishi, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

"But from the beginning we have been asking the U.S. government to make an apology and to show its sincerity through an act: to realize its 'unequivocal undertaking' to abolish its nuclear arsenals. Our answer to the atomic bombing, the greatest war terrorism, was and is ‘Never More Hibakusha, elimination of nuclear arms.’"

Skeleton of the Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall soon after the blast. The structure is preserved today as the Atomic Bomb Dome, a memorial to the victims and a warning to future generations. (Photo courtesy U.S. Army)

The groups are demanding a fundamental shift in U.S. nuclear policy, an end to the development and production of nuclear warheads and delivery systems, and the immediate commencement of negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.

On Tuesday, the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, local groups across the United States will hold candlelight vigils at City Halls and other community events calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Some groups will chalk outlines of human bodies on streets and sidewalks, recalling the shadows left by victims who were instantly vaporized by the bombs.

In support of the Mayors for Peace, meeting in Hiroshima to mark the 60th anniversary of the bombings, U.S. organizers are asking their mayors to participate in the August 9 vigils and read out proclamations.

Mayors for Peace is composed of cities around the world that have formally expressed support for the abolition of nuclear weapons proposed by Takeshi Araki who was mayor of Hiroshima in 1982. Membership currently stands at 1,036 cities in 112 countries and regions.

In the United States, 72 cities are members of Mayors for Peace, including large cities such as Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Seattle.

"On this anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan, the U.S. government should offer an apology to the Japanese people," said Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action, nation's largest grassroots peace group. "Instead, the U.S. wants funding for new earth penetrating nuclear bombs, threatening the annihilation of generations to come. We're calling on the U.S. Senate to join the House of Representatives to cut funding for RNEP [Robust Nuclear Earth Penatrator], a horrific weapon that won't work."

Tri-Valley Cares of Livermore, California where the National Ignition Facility is being built as part of the U.S. nuclear development program, points out that the Bush administration's budget request for Fiscal Year 2006 funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is $6.6 billion, the 11th consecutive year in upward spending on the nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship program.

Test equipment for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, 2004. The test is called subcritical because no nuclear chain reaction is triggered. (Photo courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office)

"The NNSA is designing and installing new components to make weapons lighter, more rugged, more resistant to radiation, to improve the consistency of their explosive yield, to add new yield options, to alter the height of detonation, to conserve tritium, and to improve the accuracy of delivery. In essence, the labs are trying to upgrade every facet of the performance of existing warheads," Dr. Civiak wrote.

Instead, Tri-Valley Cares recommends that the United States conduct a "Curatorship" approach to maintaining nuclear weapons. Under Curatorship, the United States would maintain all of the weapons that are deployable under the Treaty of Moscow and a few extra spares. But the U.S. would refrain from improving its nuclear weapons or design capabilities. The proposed Curatorship budget would cut $2.0 billion (30 percent) from the administration's $6.6 billion current funding for Stockpile Stewardship.

On Friday, Universal Peace Day was celebrated in honor of those who perished and those who are still suffering from the atomic attacks. At the New York Buddhist Church, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Shinto leaders were joined by artists and musicians including legenary folksingers Pete Seeger and Peter Yarrow to hear the testimony of survivors.

U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey, the first former welfare mother to serve in Congress, is chair of the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Children and Families. (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative)

Language in Woolsey's bill points out that the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), ratified by the Senate on March 6, 2003, "fails to incorporate key elements of the START II and START III agreements regarding the destruction of delivery vehicles and the dismantlement of warheads, and it fails to provide new verification procedures necessary to effect transparent, meaningful, and permanent reductions crucial to the de-nuclearization process..."

Woolsey's bill recognizes that the SORT "called for a decrease in the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads, but projected storage of thousands of strategic warheads, including many capable of quick redeployment..."

Whereas rather than affirming the United States obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the January 9, 2002, Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review called for a New Strategic Triad consisting of "nuclear and conventional offensive strike systems integrated with active and passive defenses and a revitalized defense infrastructure with new capabilities..." Woolsey's bill states.

Among many other measures, Woolsey's bill calls upon President George W. Bush "in the interests of protecting and advancing human, national, and global security, to declare unconditionally that the United States will not use nuclear weapons first, and that pending their elimination, nuclear weapons serve only to deter a nuclear attack by a hostile country or other entity..."

Woolsey's bill has been referred to the Committee on International Relations, and to the Committee on Armed Services.