Japan Press Weekly

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2013 February 27 - March 5 TOP3 [ANTI-N-ARMS]

1,700 people participate in Bikini Day rally

On March 1, marking the 59th day of the U.S. H-bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, the annual Bikini Day rally took place in Yaizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, with about 1,700 people in attendance.

The port of Yaizu was the homeport of the tuna fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (#5 Lucky Dragon), which was showered with radioactive fallout from the Bikini Atoll blast in 1954.

The rally adopted an appeal calling for expanding grassroots activities aiming at a total ban on nuclear weapons with the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in mind.

Shizuoka’s Kosai City Mayor Mikami Hajime, a representative of the “Mayors for a Nuclear Power Free Japan” network, and Yaizu City Mayor Nakano Hiromichi gave addresses as guest speakers.

Prior to the assembly, the participants marched to a temple where the grave of Kuboyama Aikichi, chief radio operator of the fishing boat, is located. Kuboyama died five months after his exposure to the radioactive fallout, leaving a message that he hopes nobody else will be killed by the fallout from atomic or hydrogen bombs after him.

Okazaki Kohei, a university student marching holding a picture of Kuboyama in his hands, said, “As a local citizen, I want to remember this sad history of Yaizu.”

Onuki Katsuhiro, who took part from Fukushima’s Koriyama City, visited the Marshall Islands in February as a member of a delegation of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) to support the islanders affected by the thermonuclear test. “Those inhabitants who cannot yet return home even after 59 years have passed remind me of the people of Fukushima who have evacuated their hometowns due to the radioactive contamination from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. I will work for the abolition of both atomic weapons and nuclear power plants,” he said.