Annual ‘Bikini Day’ events start

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Annual ‘Bikini Day’ events start

Anti-nuclear “Bikini Day” events began on February 27 in Shizuoka City amid an increasing call for the abolition of nuclear weapons toward the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference scheduled for May.

These annual events are recognized as the starting point of Japan’s anti-nuclear movement. Since Japanese fishing boats and their crewmembers were exposed to radiation from a U.S. H-bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, the voices against nuclear weapons have increased in Japan.

On February 27, an international forum was held with the theme: To make 2010 a turning point toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Panelists included Joseph Gerson representing the American Friends Service Committee; LisaLinda Natividad, president of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice (Assistant Professor in University of Guam); Jeong Jong Kwon, vice president of the Progressive New Party; Lee Jun Kyu, lecturer of the Laborers Academy for Alternative Society; and Tsuchida Yayoi, vice secretary general of the Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo).

Tsuchida stressed that the only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to conclude an international treaty banning the development, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. She stated that Japanese activists are now striving to collect 120 million signatures calling for a start of negotiations for a conclusion of such treaty and to send 1,500 people to New York on the occasion of the NPT Review Conference.

At Japan Gensuikyo’s national meeting held on the next day, about 1,200 participants gathering from throughout Japan talked about their local efforts to collect signatures calling for a world free of nuclear weapons.

In his keynote speech, Japan Gensuikyo Secretary General Taka Hiroshi said that while the Japanese government sticks to the notion of nuclear deterrence, at the U.N. General Assembly 124 countries supported a proposal for a start of negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. He called for struggles to be developed to apply further pressure on nuclear weapon states.

A message from the Egyptian Government was introduced. Guest speakers included Konishi Satoru, vice secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) and Ogata Yasuo, vice chair of the Japanese Communist Party (see separate item).

- Akahata, February 28 & March 1, 2010