Photo/Illutration Tamashii Honda, right, president of a group of bereaved families of Nagasaki atomic bomb victims, explains the request from hibakusha organizations in an Aug. 30 meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. (Koichi Ueda)

Atomic bomb survivors from Nagasaki did not hide their bitter disappointment at the central government’s unchanging stance toward their various policy requests.

Representatives from four hibakusha groups met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Aug. 30 in Tokyo to submit a list of requests that they wished the Japanese government to consider.

Normally, such a meeting is held on Aug. 9 in Nagasaki after the memorial ceremony to remember those who perished in the 1945 atomic bombing of the city.

But Kishida could not attend this year’s event due to an approaching typhoon, so the belated meeting was set up in the capital.

After the meeting, Shigemitsu Tanaka, chairman of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, met with reporters and said, “Their stance has changed very little over the last 10 years or so. They appear to be waiting for all the hibakusha to die out completely.”

One of their requests was for Kishida to attend, as an observer, the conference of parties to the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) scheduled for this autumn.

But Kishida expressed a cautious stance, noting that none of the nuclear powers had joined the TPNW and that no course of action had been established to feasibly achieve a world without nuclear weapons.

The hibakusha also noted, along with their requests, that no specific course toward the elimination of nuclear weapons was made at the Group of Seven summit meeting held in Hiroshima last May, and that documents from the summit made no mention of the TPNW.

“We will continue and strengthen efforts that are realistic and practical based on the Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament issued by the G-7 leaders," Kishida said. 

In talking with reporters, Tanaka said, “Japan should at least take part in the TPNW conference as an observer so it can hear the views of the two sides and work toward promoting a compromise. Japan’s standing is gradually becoming weaker.”

The hibakusha also requested that the government broaden the range of those officially considered hibakusha so that more victims of the atomic bombing can receive full health care benefits.

In Nagasaki, public assistance is only available to those who were in the designated “atomic-bombed area.” Those who were outside that zone are only recognized as people who “experienced the atomic bombing,” not as actual hibakusha.

Nagasaki hibakusha have pointed to a finalized Hiroshima High Court ruling in 2021 that said people who were exposed to radioactive “black rain” that fell in the suburbs of Hiroshima following the bombing should also be recognized as hibakusha.

In meeting Kishida, Tanaka said, “I ask that you make a bold decision to revise the areas in Nagasaki that are officially designated as having been atomic bombed.”

But Katsunobu Kato, the health minister who also attended the meeting, pointed to the government view that there were no objective records that black rain fell in areas outside of the atomic-bombed zone of Nagasaki.

He also noted that the Supreme Court had finalized a ruling that people in Nagasaki who merely “experienced the atomic bombing” did not have to be recognized as hibakusha.

Other hibakusha in Nagasaki viewed the proceedings in Tokyo through an online broadcast.

Koichi Kawano, 83, chairman of the Liaison Council of Hibakusha, Nagasaki Peace Movement Center, handed the hibakusha’s requests to Kishida in last year’s meeting, but was unable to make the trip to Tokyo this year due to failing health.

“I feel betrayed because the government made no specific response” to requests we have repeatedly made about expanding the range of hibakusha, Kawano said.

Chiyoko Iwanaga, one of the plaintiffs of a group lawsuit demanding the government recognize them as atomic bomb survivors, also viewed the Tokyo meeting online. 

“I held hopes for some words of compassion toward Nagasaki," she said. "I want to ask him what he considers his mission as a policymaker.”

(This article was written by Shinkai Kawabe, Mami Okada and Takashi Ogawa.)

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