NAGASAKI - Japan's leading organization of atomic bomb survivors on Saturday vowed to continue its campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, as the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group held a celebration in Nagasaki to mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of its establishment.
"We have decided to hold a celebration in Nagasaki, where the organization was founded, to renew our resolve to ensure that there are never again any victims of atomic bombings," said Jiro Hamasumi, secretary general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, also known as Nihon Hidankyo.
The group, which won the Nobel prize in 2024, was established on Aug. 10, 1956, a day after the 11th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II.
Saturday's event, held on the eve of the 81st anniversary of the bombing, started with a moment of silence and was followed by a series of events, including a reading by a local high school student of a poem about a wish for a nuclear-free world and a performance by a singer and a dancer from an ethnic Koreans troupe.
Many Koreans were victims of the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the first Japanese city to suffer the atomic bombing, having been conscripted to work at factories and other industrial sites in Japan.
The performances were followed by a speech by Shigemitsu Tanaka, a representative of the organization, who gave a brief history of its activities over the years while lamenting Japan's refusal to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
"Currently, 100 countries have signed and ratified the treaty, but unfortunately, Japan, the only country to have experienced atomic bombings in wartime, continues to turn its back on it, going in the opposite direction from what we wish," said the 86-year-old Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor.
The event drew distinguished guests around the world, among them being Carlos Umana, executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, a civil society network that brings together over 60 organizations urging the Spanish government to join the treaty.
"Nuclear weapons poison relations between countries, erode international law and they embolden aggression under an umbrella of impunity," Umana said.
Terumi Tanaka, the 94-year-old co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, stressed that the organization's work is far from over as politicians call for increased defense spending.
"We can't just be happy with our 70th anniversary," he said.
