THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 9, 2023 at 18:23 JST
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki addresses a meeting of the drafting committee for the city’s peace declaration in Nagasaki on July 8. (Photo by Mami Okada)
NAGASAKI--Nagasaki’s annual peace declaration this summer is expected to take issue with a nuclear disarmament document adopted at the Group of Seven summit held in Hiroshima in May for trying to maintain nuclear deterrence.
In doing so, it will reflect the critical voices of “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
On July 8 the city presented a preliminary draft of the declaration to the third meeting of the drafting committee, which is comprised of 15 members, including scholars and hibakusha.
Mayor Shiro Suzuki will read the declaration during a ceremony on Aug. 9 to mark the 78th anniversary of the city’s 1945 atomic bombing.
The G-7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament states: “Our security policies are based on the understanding that nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.”
The preliminary draft gives high marks to the G-7 leaders’ “commitment” in the document “to achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”
However, Shigemitsu Tanaka, 82, who heads the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, said at the second meeting of the drafting committee on June 17 that the Hiroshima Vision “justified” the argument for nuclear deterrence.
He called on city authorities to revise an earlier draft to echo the low regard hibakusha atomic bomb survivors have for the G-7 document.
Overall, the preliminary draft sounds the alarm about the horrors of nuclear warfare because Russia continues to threaten to use nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine and other countries are becoming more dependent on nuclear arms.
It also states that Suzuki’s parents are both atomic bomb survivors and includes a commitment to pass down the feelings and experiences of hibakusha to the next generation.
Suzuki, 55, was elected mayor in April. He will read the peace declaration for the first time during the annual peace memorial ceremony this year.
Nagasaki city expects to compile a draft outline of the peace declaration by the end of July after gauging opinions about the preliminary draft.
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