Bikini Day Rally participants call for growth of Nuclear Abolition Movement

Japan Press Weekly

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

Bikini Day Rally participants call for growth of Nuclear Abolition Movement

On the eve of the 55^th anniversary of the March 1^st Bikini tragedy, the Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) held a national rally in Shizuoka City and resolved to step up the movement for a world free of nuclear weapons toward the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference scheduled for early 2010 in New York.

Attended by about 1,200 people from all over Japan, the national rally heard the keynote report made by Japan Gensuikyo Secretary General Taka Hiroshi.

Taka stated that calls for nuclear weapons to be eliminated are growing throughout the world and that the U.S. president as well as government officials of nuclear powers and their allies are now poised to stand for a world without nuclear weapons.

Stressing that the movement against A and H bombs is at a crucial turning point, Taka proposed a campaign to collect 12 million signatures in support of the call for a nuclear-free world and to make the reality of the damage from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the U.S. hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll known to more people. He said that the upcoming Peace March and the subsequent 2009 World Conference against A and H Bombs should be a milestone in this effort.

Participants from the United States, Australia, and the Philippines spoke and shared experiences about their nationwide grassroots movements.

A representative of the Anti-Nuclear Seto Center in Aichi Prefecture said, "We live in an era in which a path is clearly being paved for abolishing nuclear weapons, and I will take this path to deliver anti-nuclear signatures to New York."

A Tokushima Gensuikyo representative said that they visited more than 150 organizations and individuals in their campaign to collect signatures from at least 10 percent of the prefecture's population. A representative of the New Japan Women's Association from Tokyo spoke about their use of kamishibai (picture cards storytelling with songs) to help collect signatures.

High school students said that they began a signature drive last autumn and that the progress in the national movement is encouraging.

A high school student from Aichi said that they will talk about what they have learned to as many people as possible.

Takada Kimiko, president of the New Japan Women's Association, gave the opening address. Tanaka Terumi, secretary general of the association of Japan A-bomb Sufferers' Organizations (Hidankyo), and Ogata Yasuo, Japanese Communist Party vice-chair, gave speeches. Ogata called for creating a surge in the nuclear weapons abolition movement by returning to the basics of the movement as well as by seizing on favorable turns in the situation.

- Akahata, March 1, 2009