October 23, 2024

Nobel Prize-winning Nihon Hidankyo representative director Tanaka Terumi on October 22 spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, expressing his determination to continue to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Tanaka talked briefly about his experience in the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 in which he lost five relatives. He said that he entered the shuttered city three days after the bombing which gave him the strong conviction that wars should never be allowed to start.

Explaining the history of Hidankyo (the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Survivors Organizations), Tanaka noted that the 1954 Bikini Atoll incident, in which Japanese tuna-fishing vessels and crews were showered with radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion, aroused public anger which developed into a nationwide movement calling for a ban on nuclear weapons. The Hidankyo representative said that with the antinuclear movement growing, Hidankyo was founded in 1956.

Regarding Japan’s continued reliance on the so-called U.S. “nuclear umbrella”, Tanaka pointed out that despite years’ of hard work giving testimonies throughout the country, Hibakusha’s earnest desire for the abolition of nuclear weapons has not been fully conveyed to the general populace, which makes it possible for the government to maintain its current position aligned with U.S. nuclear policy. Tanaka said that in order to realize a world without nuclear weapons, Hibakusha will continue pressing the Japanese government to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Past related article:
> Hibakusha win 2024 Nobel Peace Prize [October 12, 2024]