HAMASUMI Jiro, Secretary General
Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo)
I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors.
I am an in-utero Hiroshima Hibakusha. At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when my mother was 3-month pregnant with me. My father had left home for work early in the morning. My families and relatives in the city fled to our house located 4 kilometers away from the hypocenter. From that day on, about 30 people stayed together at our house. But my father would not come home. The next day, my mother and sisters went in search of our father to his workplace but returned, due to the scorching heat and stench of corpses. They went again on August 8 and managed to recover from the rubble only three things: the buckle of his belt, his purse and a bundle of keys.
My mother’s cousin brought his friend with severe burns. Without any medicine, we only applied ground potato paste, but he soon died. My cousin lost his hair and died. Another 3-year-old cousin was not hurt, but died around 20 days later. My uncle, who had taken over the work of demolishing houses in place of my pregnant mother, returned home looking completely different, but he passed away three days later. A town of 423 households swelled to 1,200 as evacuees poured in, and bodies were gathered in the playground of a primary school, where four or five were cremated every day over next month and a half. The Hibakusha could neither die nor live as human beings.
After my father died, my mother was left with seven children. I grew up looking at the photograph of my father hanging on the lintel of our house. Having been given life in exchange for my father’s death, not a day goes by without my thinking of him. The war is not over, for there are still as many as 12,000 nuclear weapons in the world. The Hibakusha can never feel at ease until that number reaches zero.
Being exposed to radiation in mother’s womb did not spare the babies from its effects. Rather, because they were in-utero, the effect of radiation on their unprotected young cells could be immeasurable. It is said that in-utero Hibakusha are “stigmatized as Hibakusha even before they were born.” Some suffer from delayed physical and intellectual development, a condition known as the “A-bomb microcephaly.” It robbed them of their future and sacrificed their families as well. The suffering continues to this day. A younger sister who supports her brother with microcephaly calls the atomic bomb a weapon of the devil. There are currently about 6,400 people in Japan who were exposed to radiation in the womb. The suffering of the survivors, their anxiety about the illnesses for themselves and their children and grandchildren, never fades.
The atomic bombs instantly devastated two cities with heat rays, blast pressure, and radiation, claiming countless lives indiscriminately. Within that year, more than 140,000 were killed in Hiroshima and over 70,000 in Nagasaki. People were crushed beneath collapsed houses and burned alive. Processions of ghost-like figures with their peeled skin dangling. People could not save their own children or parents, nor could they give water to those hovering between life and death. For more than ten years after the bombings, the survivors were abandoned without any public support, left to face illness, poverty, prejudice, and discrimination.
In the height of the movement against A and H Bombs triggered by the Bikini Incident of March 1954, Hibakusha founded Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, on August 10, 1956 in Nagasaki. Hidankyo will mark the 70th anniversary in August this year. In its founding declaration “Message to the World”, we Hibakusha “have reassured our will to save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves.” For the past 70 years, we have upheld our vow and appealed domestically and internationally, “No more Hibakusha; No to nuclear war; Abolish nuclear weapons; Achieve State compensation on the A-bomb damages.
After the negotiation at the United Nations, on July 7, 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted with 122 countries voting in favor. The treaty entered into force in 2021. It is a historic treaty with its origin found in the first U.N. General Assembly resolution, which called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
We are now at the 11th Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which came into force 56 years ago. We call on you to immediately implement the promise you have made at the 2000 Review Conference which was reaffirmed in 2010, namely, the “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament.”
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution of Japan. Article 9 declares the renunciation of war, and its second paragraph denies the right to maintain military forces and the right to belligerency. Having experienced the nuclear wars in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the belief that war was no longer an option became widespread. During the constitutional debates, it was stated that “civilization and war are incompatible; if civilization fails to swiftly eradicate war, war will eradicate civilization.” It is also said that “the U.N. Charter did not anticipate nuclear war; it was drafted before the existence of nuclear weapons.”
The atomic bombings 80 years ago continue to inflict damage on the surviving Hibakusha physically, economically and mentally. Nuclear weapons cannot coexist with humanity. In order to live as human beings, we the Hibakusha have consistently resisted nuclear weapons. Please visit our A-Bomb Exhibition now held in the lobby of the U.N. building.
Peace is essential for children to achieve their dreams and hopes. Passing on a blue sky free of nuclear weapons or war to all children should be the mission of the Hibakusha, and also of every adult around the world.
One million people gathered in New York for the Second U.N. Special Session on Disarmament in 1982. Standing at the rostrum of the General Assembly Hall, Yamaguchi Senji, Hibakusha of Nagasaki showed a photo depicting his body with severe A-bomb keloids and appealed at the end of his speech: “No More Hiroshima, No More Nagasaki, No More War! No More Hibakusha!”
With dramatic gestures and a loud voice, he shouted, “No More War!” I’m sure you understand what he meant. We must not go to war. Nuclear weapons were used precisely because we went to war.
Let us work together to build a human society free from nuclear weapons and war. Thank you very much.