Have Smithonian museum describe reality of A-bomb damage: Hibakusha

A group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors (Hibakusha) visited the National Air and Space Museum, a branch of the Smithonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., on December 12 to request that the museum's planned exhibit of the "Enola Gay" bear a label describing the damage caused by the atomic bombing and the agony of the Hibakusha.

The seven-member delegation of the Japan Confederation of A and H Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Japan Hidankyo), led by Tanaka Terumi, Hidankyo secretary general, handed thousands of signatures in support of their demand to the museum's director.

With these signatures, Hidankyo called on U.S. President George W. Bush and J.R. 'Jack' Dailey, the director general of the National Air and Space Museum, to "include in the exhibition photographs and other materials showing the damage and after-effects of the bombing, or cancel the exhibition."

The restored "Enola Gay", the U.S. bomber that made the world's first nuclear attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was to go on public display on December 15 at a new annex of the U.S. National Air and Space Museum outside Washington, D.C. in defiance of strong public protests against the way it is exhibited.

Insisting that the Enola Gay will go on display as an example of "technological achievement", the Smithonian museum has made clear that there will be no explanation of the damage and after-effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. (end)