  Keeping Azuma's call in mind -- Akahata 'Current' column, January 31The sad news came on the cold windy morning of January 29. Azuma Kazuo, an atomic bomb survivor, passed away before completing his court struggle demanding state recognition of his illness as caused by radiation from the atomic bombing. Azuma was a 16-year-old a junior high school student working at Mitsubishi Heavy Industry's arms factory in Nagasaki on student a mobilization when he was exposed to a large dose of radiation, mainly in the upper body. Shards of glass embedded into his body. He also had severe burns. After hovering between life and death, he had his illness diagnosed as caused by A-bomb radiation. In 1994, after more than ten years of struggle with hepatitis, he applied for government recognition that his hepatitis was caused by the A-bombing, but was rejected. He could not tolerate this arrogance and contempt, and filed a lawsuit in 1999 against the government that was insisting that his illness was unrelated to exposure to A-bomb radiation. The Tokyo District Court ruled in favor of Azuma on March 31, 2004. However, Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Sakaguchi Chikara appealed against the ruling. The Tokyo High Court is expected to make a ruling in March. The A-bomb survivor, who suffered from lung cancer and hepatitis cancer, died only two months before a high court ruling. Testifying in the court Azuma stated, "I must say that the government has failed to recognize the most important thing, that it is not Hibakusha but the government that is to blame for the atom bombing." How scathing this statement was! In effect, it was directed at the Japanese government because it refuses to admit that Japan is responsible for the war of aggression that killed millions of Asian people, including Japanese, and even continues to treat war victims harshly without providing necessary compensation. Recently, world leaders, including those from former enemy countries and holocaust survivors, met in Poland to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, winch will observe the 60th A-bombing anniversary this summer, are calling on the world to overcome the historical enmity to ensure that their tragedy will never be repeated elsewhere in the world. The Japanese government is called upon to hold a similar gathering in Japan, bearing deep in mind what Azuma stated in the court. (end) |