Winnipeg Japanese community to send off lanterns for Hiroshima anniversary

Norwegian People’s Aid, the labour movement’s humanitarian organisation for solidarity, has for many years been pushing the Norwegian politicians to take active, driving role in the fight to prohibit nuclear weapons.

After the ceremony on Thursday, Tsuboi and other leaders of survivors’ groups met Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

About 55,000 people from 100 countries attended the ceremony in Hiroshima, including U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control.

On this day (August 6) in 1945 – six years into World War II and four years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor – the U.S. dropped a uranium bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan.

“[This event] gives a chance for people who are really concerned about the situation in the world with nuclear weapons to be able to say, ‘This is the devastation that it can cause, and we don’t want that to happen again.’ We have to be very vigilant”, said Miki. “We need to scrap Trident and begin to finally rid the world of nuclear weapons”.

Hiroshima has been rebuilt, but there are still reminders of the bombing.

“Little Boy”, dropped from the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, destroyed 90 percent of the city and killed an estimated 140,000 people, including those who succumbed to injuries and radiation sickness in the ensuing weeks.

During the remembrance ceremony at the epicentre of the Hiroshima attack today, the mayor of Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui urged the world leaders to ultimately abolish nuclear weaponry.

Many with memories of the war and its aftermath are scathing about Abe’s steps away from Japan’s pacifist constitution in pursuit of a more robust security stance – a key policy goal – and his desire to adopt a less apologetic tone toward the war in Asia. On August 9, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing 40,000 instantly.

Despite the Nagasaki bomb being bigger, the geography of area prevented large scale destruction, as the hills around were able to contain the blast.

Abe’s predecessors apologized for Japan’s wartime actions in their statements on the 50th and 60th anniversaries.

The original copy of the operations order for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima is on display at the private museum in the Boston suburbs as the deadly attack marks its 70th anniversary.

“President Obama and other policymakers, please come to the A-bombed cities, hear the hibakusha (surviving victims) with your own ears, and encounter the reality of the atomic bombings”, Matsui said, referring to next year’s G-7 summit to be held in Japan, according to The Associated Press.