 Gensuikyo holds Bikini Day rally The Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) held its annual Bikini Day National Rally in Shizuoka City on February 27. About 1,200 participants renewed their determination to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by taking decisive steps toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. The rally stressed the importance of increasing the strength of Japan's anti-nuclear movement for the NPT Review Conference scheduled for May and the World Conference against A & H Bombs in August. Kumagai Kanemichi, representative director of Japan Gensuikyo and National Confederation of Trade Unions president, said that the U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954 was the starting point of Japan's movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons and that the movement has influenced national policies. He called for efforts to make this year give concrete shape to the process of nuclear weapons abolition. Japan Gensuikyo Secretary General Takakusagi Hiroshi congratulated non-nuclear state governments, local municipalities, and NGOs throughout the world on their efforts to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. He stressed that Japanese peace activists have a important role to play in the world's anti-nuclear movement because Japan's government is reluctant to play a key role in eliminating nuclear weapons. Walid Ahmed Haggag, second secretary of the Embassy of Egypt in Japan and other foreign delegates, including Jacqueline Cabasso (U.S.coordinator for the Abolition 2000) and Abacca Anjain-Maddison (Senator of the Marshall Islands) addressed the speech. (end) |