“Seventy-four years ago, everything here in Hiroshima was completely destroyed by the atomic bomb and so were the people living here.” These were the opening words of Hidehiko Yuzaki, the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture, when he spoke at the city’s memorial site on August 6. “Underneath the lush greenery here in Peace Memorial Park, and below the riverbed, lie the bones of many innocent people whose bodies were burned away in a moment and whose souls are grieving forever,” he said. Around the world, many who hope — and work — for peace, marked that day, and August 9, 74 years since Nagasaki was also destroyed by a second US atomic bomb. In New York, a group of peace and anti-nuclear activists gathered in front of the Consulate General of Japan in New York with a bouquet of flowers to express their “sincere regrets and apologies for our nation’s atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.”
Together they, and many other groups and individuals from around the world, including Beyond Nuclear, signed an “open letter” to the people of Japan, advocating for the abolition of nuclear weapons globally, and for Japan, especially, “to be the first country in the U.S. nuclear alliance to give up the U.S. nuclear umbrella by swiftly signing, ratifying and playing a leadership role in promoting the (UN)(Treaty (on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.) More