Japan remembers Hiroshima nuclear holocaust

21 August, 2007:

On August 6, 2007, Japan observed the 62nd anniversary of the United States’ atomic bombing of Hiroshima – the first-ever nuclear attack in the world.

The country also vowed never to seek atomic weapons and urged nuclear powers to give up their own arsenals.

About 45,000 people recited silent prayers at 8.15 a.m. (9.15 a.m. AEST), the exact moment in 1945 when a single atomic bomb dropped by a US aircraft instantly killed over 140,000 people and fatally injured tens of thousands of others with radiation or horrific burns.

“I have strengthened my determination not to repeat this tragedy,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan told a gathering of citizens, survivors of the blast, politicians and foreign dignitaries in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. “I want to renew my promise to maintain the non-nuclear principles,'' Abe said, referring to Japan’s policy of refusing to possess, produce, or allow the entry of nuclear weapons on its soil.

Shinzo Abe also promised expanded medical support to those who are still suffering the effects of the 1945 atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Some of the top aides of the conservative Shinzo Abe had, in 2006, called for Japan at least to study going nuclear after the country’s arch-rival North
Korea tested an atomic bomb.

Going nuclear is near-sacrilege to many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nagasaki was also destroyed by a US nuclear bomb that killed another 70,000 people in the final days of World War II.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba denounced world powers for maintaining their nuclear weapons, mentioning the United States by name.

Japan has been officially pacifist since its defeat in World War II, and turned into one of the closest allies of the United States, hosting over 40,000 US troops.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to rewrite the United States-imposed pacifist Constitution, though his plans received a major setback last week
when his party lost key elections.

On August 5, 2007, a day before the anniversary, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized for his former Defence Minister’s suggestion that the US atomic attacks of 1945 were justified. Abe offered the apology to a group of atomic survivors.

Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma had resigned in July 2007, because of the public outcry after he suggested in June 2007 that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified since they brought the end of World War II. He had said the atomic attacks prevented approaching Soviet forces from seizing territory.