March 1 Bikini Day rally held to ensure abolition of nuclear weapons

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

March 1 Bikini Day rally held to ensure abolition of nuclear weapons

On March 1, peace activists gathered in Yaizu City in Shizuoka Prefecture to take part in a rally and march marking the 55th anniversary of the Bikini tragedy, in which the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon #5), a Japanese tuna fishing boat based in Yaizu was showered with radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

About 1,600 people attended the rally co-sponsored by the Organizing Committee for the World Conference against A & H Bombs and the Shizuoka Organizing Committee for the Bikini Day Rally.

Young workers at the Japan Federation of Democratic Medical Institutions-affiliated hospitals reported that they are organizing a motorbike campaign in order to call on citizens to take part in the anti-nuclear movement.

Representatives from a consumers' cooperative union in Okayama Prefecture reported that they are campaigning to win citizens' support by distributing yellow ribbons in support of peace.

Kawamoto Shiro, the chair of the Shizuoka Association of A-bomb Sufferers, spoke on behalf of the organizers.

In the keynote speech, Noguchi Kunikazu, a representative of the Organizing Committee for the World Conference against A & H Bombs, called for greater efforts to create a surge in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons toward the 2010 conference to reassess the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mayor Shimizu Hiroshi of Yaizu City made a speech. Yaizu was the homeport of the Lucky Dragon #5.

Abacca Anjain, former Rongelap Senator and an atomic-bomb survivor from the Republic of Marshall Islands, and Kikima Hajime, head of the Hamamatsu city clinic that has been treating A and H bombs survivors, gave accounts of their experiences.

Oishi Matashichi, former member of the Lucky Dragon #5 crew, said he is afraid that the memory of the Bikini tragedy is being forgotten. He stressed that special efforts are needed to inform young people of what really happened on March 1, 1945.

About 1,500 citizens took part in a memorial march toward the tomb of Kuboyama Aikichi, the Lucky Dragon #5's captain who died after being exposed to radiation from the U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion.

Kuboyama left the message "Let me be the last victim of A & H Bombs."

On the eve of the March 1 Bikini Day, young peace activists held a rally in Shizuoka City with about 250 people attending. After speeches by Anzai Ikuro, the honorary director of the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, and other persons, they discussed ways to further develop the peace movement.

The Democratic Youth League of Japan (DYLJ) chair Tanaka Yu and the National Confederation of Trade Unions youth section chief Nomura Masahiro proposed to develop daily activities among young people in order to realize the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

- Akahata, March 2, 2009