Chugoku Shimbun Peace News
Hiroshima's Role Greater Than Ever	'03/8/6
The cicadas' drone in Peace Memorial Park is irritating. The nuclear threat, which should have receded with the end of the Cold War, is rising toward a crisis. The US concept of preemptive first strike and its development of mini-nukes, the Iraq War, North Korea's nuclear program, suspicions about nuclear development in Iran-Hiroshima greets A-bomb Day with nuclear tensions rising in the international community. With the limited use of nuclear weapons being discussed as an imminent practical possibility, the role Hiroshima is called on to play has grown considerably more important. - Real Prospect of a Pre-emptive Strike In March this year, the US attacked Iraq with the stated purpose of destroying the weapons of mass destruction possessed by this "rogue state" before they could be passed on to a terrorist organization. Certainly, the September 11 terrorist attacks demonstrated the existence of entities that cannot be deterred like nation states. However, if pre-emptive first strikes are acceptable, all brakes on military action will fail we will careen toward an endless chain of violence and retaliation. The US seeks to respond to terrorism and "rogue states" not through international cooperation centered in the UN but through unilateral displays of power. Extending this line leads directly to first strikes with nuclear weapons. Signs of danger are everywhere. In March last year, we heard news reports that the Bush administration had ordered the Pentagon to prepare to use nuclear weapons in Iraq and North Korea. There was talk of using them in Afghanistan. The US is accelerating research into "small" nuclear weapons like "robust nuclear earth penetrator" and has refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). It seems determined to resume nuclear testing. This is all part of developing so-called "useable nukes." The Clinton administration emphasized "nuclear non-proliferation" through multilateral agreements. The unilateralist Bush administration evidences little concern for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It leans instead toward "counterproliferation," and refuses to rule out the possibility of a military strike against North Korea to solve the nuclear problem there. North Korea needs to awaken to the dangerous idiocy of clinging to nuclear weapons. It goes without saying that Japan, with its many US military bases, would be involved in anything that happens on the Korean Peninsula. To avoid that nightmare, North Korea must be persuaded in the six-nation conference to abandon its nuclear program. However, believing that North Korea has nuclear weapons, some in the US are calling for Japan to arm itself with such weapons. Even in Japan some are campaigning in that direction. Last year, a ranking government official proposed a review of the "three non-nuclear principles." Such ideas are anachronisms running counter to efforts toward peace and security in Northeast Asia. - Let's enhance our imagination Have our memories of "Hiroshima" and war faded so far? We watched the Persian Gulf War twelve years ago like a computer game in our living rooms. The pinpoint attacks by precision weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq have made the realities of war nearly invisible. But we must never forget that war is the slaughter of real human beings, and the ultimate method is nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have the destructive power to utterly destroy human society and leave the survivors tortured by the fear of death from radiation damage. Mini-nukes are equally cruel. No matter how "small," no matter how "pinpoint," they must never be used. The adverse health effects derived from the radiation damage done by depleted uranium (DU) used in the Gulf War are spreading through Iraq. DU was used again in the recent Iraq War. We need to enhance out ability to imagine with a sense of reality the disastrously cruelty effects of war and nuclear weapons. Measures against terrorism will for some time be an important theme for the international community. The threat or actual use of nuclear weapons by a terrorist organization is a real possibility. That is precisely why we must ceaselessly advocate for the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. We must let the rest of the world know the facts of the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And actions that bring the danger to light are vital. - Grassroots Coming Together Despite strong international public opinion against war, the Japanese government was among the first to express its full support for the Iraq War. Yet, there is profound meaning in the protest movement that spread through this A-bombed city. In early March, just before the war, 6,000 people formed a "human message" spelling out the words No War No DU. Later, they made a "message of fire," forming the same words with candles around the A-bomb Dome. Then, the made a "peace ribbon." This series of actions drew young people in numbers not seen for many years. The presence of young people is especially encouraging because hibakusha and peace activists are aging. The passing on of the A-bomb experience and the anti-nuclear campaign are near crisis. We need young breezes blowing through Hiroshima. There are certainly limits to the effectiveness of grassroots activities in the face of naked-power-oriented international politics. Even enormous worldwide demonstrations were unable to prevent the Iraq War. However, we must not give way to feelings of impotence. There is no question that the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the appeals of the hibakusha have helped to prevent nuclear war. Now, the city of Hiroshima is calling on member cities of the Mayors for Peace to attend the NPT Review Conference in 2005 to lobby their national delegates for a start to negotiations on a "treaty to ban nuclear weapons." Meanwhile, we need also to arouse the grassroots at home and abroad. This summer, when it was decided that Self-Defense Forces would be dispatched to the Iraqi battlefields, approximately 500 hibakusha transcended the groups to which they belong and held a Gathering of Hibakusha. The mounting sense of crisis is so familiar. According to a Kyodo News Service poll of hibakusha, more than fifty percent are pessimistic about the abolition of nuclear weapons, and over 40 percent are worried that a nuclear weapon will soon be used. One hibakusha who spearheaded that Gathering, Akira Ishida, chairman of the National A-bomb Teachers Association, commenting on the US rush to war noted, "We have failed to convey the message of Hiroshima. That is our fault as hibakusha." Let's replace "hibakusha" with the A-bombed nation "Japan" and generate a new and powerful force intent on actually abolishing nuclear weapons.