Posted on 08/05/2004 5:58:18 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
Friday, August 6, 2004 at 08:51 JST
HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima on Friday morning marked the 59th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of the city. An estimated 40,000 people attended the ceremony that started at 8 a.m. at the Peace Memorial Park in the downtown part of the western Japan city that was devastated in the world's first nuclear attack Aug 6, 1945, three days before the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
In his peace declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba voiced serious concern over the "egocentric worldview" of the United States and moves in Japan to revise the country's pacifist Constitution.
"The egocentric worldview of the U.S. government is reaching extremes," Akiba said, criticizing the United States for its nuclear policies.
"Ignoring the United Nations and international law, the United States has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable," Akiba said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also attended the memorial service.
Akiba demanded that the United States strive with other nuclear powers toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
In the declaration, he also demanded that the Japanese government reject moves to revise the war-renouncing Constitution.
"The Japanese government, as our representative, should defend the peace Constitution, of which all Japanese should be proud, and work diligently to rectify the trend toward open acceptance of war and nuclear weapons that is increasingly prevalent at home and abroad," he said.
"We demand that our government act on its obligation as the only nation to suffer atomic bombings," he said.
Article 9 of the Constitution stipulates that the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."
The mayor is a former House of Representatives member of the opposition Social Democratic Party, which is against revision of the Constitution as well as Japan's dispatch of troops to Iraq for reconstruction work there after the U.S.-led war on the country.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage reportedly said last month that the article hinders the Japan-U.S. alliance. He apparently backtracked later, however, as the remark drew strong criticism from lawmakers in Japan.
The 59th anniversary comes at a time when concerns over nuclear issues have intensified globally.
Multilateral efforts are under way to deal with North Korea's nuclear ambitions, while Iran has come under pressure from the international community to allow inspections of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
While expressing hope for the success of the 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Hiroshima also expressed its intention of taking the initiative in achieving the complete abolition of nuclear weapons by bringing together cities, citizens and nongovernmental organizations from around the world.
The initiative, called the Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, aims at adopting an action program incorporating an interim goal of "the signing in 2010 of a Nuclear Weapons Convention to serve as the framework for eliminating nuclear weapons by 2020," according to Akiba.
Among those attending the ceremony were Pakistani Ambassador Kamran Niaz and Russian Ambassador Alexander Losyukov.
U.N. Undersecretary General Nobuyasu Abe is also attending on behalf of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The city government of Hiroshima had asked seven nuclear nations — Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States — as well North Korea to send government delegates to the ceremony, but only Pakistan and Russia accepted.
The U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its aftereffects killed an estimated 140,000 people by the end of 1945.
This year, the names of 5,142 more people recognized as atomic-bomb victims by the city since Aug 6 last year were added to a memorial arch, bringing the total to 237,062. (Kyodo News)
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that's the first I have heard of THAT!
Found it.
The 'kill' is at 122.
Dude! He's like that guy, like you know who wouldn't like leave, and like Mt St. Helens, like got him, you know?
Whoops, the 'kill' is at 135.
thanks! you Da Man!
Source please?
The Japanese of today are not the Jpanese of 1945, so I wouldn't worry.
I know that. I was just raggin' on the mayor.
We know that the Japanese were working on an atomic bomb but their programs were far behind the United States. The documents we found after the war showed that they were probably at the same stage the Manhattan Project was in 1942. Much of their equipment and materials were destroyed by B-29 firebomb raids in 1945.
We know that the Japanese were working on an atomic bomb but their programs were far behind the United States. The documents we found after the war showed that they were probably at the same stage the Manhattan Project was in 1942. Much of their equipment and materials were destroyed by B-29 firebomb raids in 1945.
Oh my!
And thank you (and your dad) for your service to our country. You have an impressive bio, Colonel. I'm glad you're on our side (Republican).
Holy crap, that was like watching a slow motion train wreck! Thanks for the entertainment.
"They" are a minority in this case. The Social Democratic Party as a whole is 1) an opposition party to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, 2) opposed to the revision of their constitution's Article 9, and 3) opposed to the commitment of the JSDF overseas in Iraq (or anywhere outside of Japan).
In other words, like the Japan Communist Party and Japan Socialist Party before them, the SDP is a leftist organization that lives in the ideal world of "unarmed neutrality" (as the JSP once advocated). Pay these twits no more mind than you do the Green Party of the US.
Kinda like a psychological case study.
I especially loved being accused of being a 'dual citizen' who smoked poppy. And no, I have no idea what either reference meant. LOL
" THEY are the ones who attacked Pearl Harbor. THEY are the ones who destroyed American lives all across the Pacific. "
Problem is , most Japanese folks are happily unaware of what really went on in WW2 because they get a thorough brainwashing in school . They learn more about what the Nazis did . I've read my daughter's school textbook . A total whitewashing of everything evil Tojo and his loyal robots did . Really pisses me off - but what are you gonna do ?
If I remember right, it was politics. Note that there was a palace coup attempt by elements in the Japanese military after the second bomb dropped that, if it had been successful, would have prevented the Japanese from surrendering even after the second bomb.
Hooboy - I missed that one. Bones loses the guidance module and goes ballistic. Tip to newbies: if you find yourself about to post "Sieg Heil," it's time to take a break...
you got to do what you have to do somtimes.....
This is important that we don't let the children forget... that it would have been devestating on our troups to invade the island.
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