Hibakusha Speak On Un Pact Taking Effect On Friday
Survivors of the 1945 US atomic bombings of Japan have urged the Japanese government to join a UN nuclear ban treaty that will take effect on Friday. They say Japan should take the lead in seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The survivors, known as hibakusha, spoke about the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday.
Among the hibakusha is Kodama Michiko, who experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima when she was 7 years old.
Now 82 years old and assistant secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, she said she was very pleased that the treaty makes nuclear weapons illegal.
But Kodama said it is really regrettable that the government of Japan, the only country to have suffered from the wartime use of atomic weapons, has not joined the treaty even now.
She said it should lead global efforts to eliminate nuclear arms and must join the treaty as soon as possible.
Another assistant secretary general of the group, 77-year-old Wada Masako, is a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bombing.
Wada said US President Joe Biden should think about how inhumane nuclear weapons are as they destroy everything.
She said no progress has in effect been made since 2009, when Barack Obama, the US president at the time, said that he was pushing for a world without nuclear weapons.
She expressed hope that Biden will work for peace not only for the US but for the world.
A key Japanese member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, Kawasaki Akira, told the news conference that the treaty will be a driving force in reducing nuclear arms in political, economic and social terms.
Kawasaki said they will work to increase the number of treaty members to more than 100 within a few years.
The treaty was adopted in July 2017. Last October, it reached the 50 ratifications required to go into force 90 days later.
Nuclear powers and countries such as Japan that fall under the nuclear umbrella have not joined the treaty.