Confab seeks int'l solidarity for nuclear abolition
Aug. 3, Kyodo - About 280 antinuclear activists called Tuesday on the world to work together for the sake of peace at the opening session of an international conference hosted by the Communists-backed Japan Council Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo).The conference, which discussed how to eliminate nuclear weapons, drew 60 foreign participants from 20 countries. Reports were submitted by representatives from the United States, Russia, China and India, which possess nuclear weapons, among other countries.
Ikuro Anzai, professor of international studies at Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University, said elimination of nuclear weapons has become a ''universal demand'' with civic groups worldwide appealing for the start of negotiations to conclude a global treaty for abolition of nuclear weapons at the International Citizens' Peace Conference in The Hague, the Netherlands in May.
Zhu Shanquing, a member of a Chinese antinuclear group, said, ''People's awakening, solidarity, and struggle are the most powerful force to prevent a war,'' urging all organizations and people to join hands to safeguard peace.
Joseph Gainza, a member of a Vermont-based U.S. antinuclear group, apologized for the atomic bombing of Japan in his speech, and recounted his group's efforts to push for Vermont to adopt a resolution calling for U.S.
President Bill Clinton to begin negotiations on abolishing nuclear weapons.
Takeshi Ito, an A-bomb victim, recounted his experience in the bombing, while Yuki Otsuji, a high school girl, told of her efforts in a students' movement to build monuments to children who died in the A-bombing of Hiroshima.
The conference is the first of Gensuikyo's series of antinuclear events until Aug. 9 to observe the 54th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Meanwhile, the Socialists-backed Japan Congress Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikin), another major antinuclear group in Japan, concluded its two-day annual world conference Tuesday in Hiroshima after discussing ways to create a nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia and to stop relying on nuclear power.
Earlier in the day, some 110 academics and antinuclear advocates at the Gensuikin meeting urged the Japanese government to press other countries concerned to create a nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia.
Gensuikin, backed by the Social Democratic Party, and Gensuikyo, supported by the Japanese Communist Party, originally belonged to the same group but split in August 1963 along Cold War lines.
(Eds: Updating with Gensuikyo conference)
