Photo/Illutration From right, Toshiyuki Mimaki, Shigemitsu Tanaka and Terumi Tanaka, co-chairpersons of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), at the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony in Oslo on Dec. 10, with Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (Jun Ueda)

A hibakusha representing this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient group delivered a dire and urgent warning about the risk of a nuclear weapon being used.

“Any one of you could become either a victim or a perpetrator at any time,” he said.

The message was forthright and unvarnished. The Japanese atomic bomb survivor emphasized that a nuclear catastrophe is not something that happened at a far-away place in the distant past but a crisis facing humanity right now.

We hope that citizens around the world will take to heart the fact that nuclear arsenals are threatening their own lives and urge their governments to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), composed of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway.

Seventy-nine years have passed since the atomic bombs claimed approximately 210,000 lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are once again facing the real threat of nuclear weapons being used.

With the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, major powers seem to have abandoned their responsibility for peace. Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the threat of nuclear weapons for intimidation and signed a presidential decree easing the criteria for their use.

In the United States, former President Donald Trump, who was in favor of the idea of expanding the role of nuclear weapons in his first term, will return to the White House in January.

The international community should seriously heed the words of Terumi Tanaka, 92, a co-chairperson of Hidankyo who survived the 1945 nuclear devastation of Nagasaki.

Tanaka said in his acceptance speech, “I am infinitely saddened and angered that the ‘nuclear taboo’ threatens to be broken.”

Hidankyo was formed in 1956. While demanding compensation from the Japanese government, each survivor has confronted their own harrowing memories and spoken out domestically and internationally about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, with the slogan, “Let us save humanity from the nuclear peril through our experiences.”

Many hibakusha involved in the group’s anti-nuclear campaign have already died.

Senji Yamaguchi (1930-2013), in his speech at a special session of the U.N. General Assembly held in New York in 1982, called for “No More Hibakusha.”

Sumiteru Taniguchi (1929-2017) testified about the horrifying reality of the atomic bombing by showing a photograph of his own back, red and blistered from the burns.

Sunao Tsuboi (1925-2021) told then U.S. President Barack Obama, who made his historic visit to Hiroshima in May 2016, “I will work hard together (with you).”

That nuclear weapons have not been used in war since then, and the fact that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was created in 2017, are undoubtedly the result of the efforts of the atomic bomb survivors, including the many who have passed away without witnessing the elimination of nuclear weapons from the world.

On the other hand, the path to a world without nuclear weapons remains elusive. Japan is among the countries that rely on the “deterrent” of nuclear weapons held by major powers for its own security.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba maintains a cautious stance on even observer participation in the Conference of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Despite being the leader of the only country to have suffered wartime nuclear attacks, he shows no commitment to performing responsible roles for the cause of nuclear abolition.

With the average age of atomic bomb survivors exceeding 85, how to pass on their experiences and the movement is also a challenge.

This time, four high school student peace ambassadors engaged in activities for the abolition of nuclear arms also visited Oslo and interacted with local high school students.

This should be an opportunity to pass the baton to the next generation to spread the message “nuclear weapons cannot--and must not--coexist with humanity” to the world.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 12

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