Hibakusha in Nuclear Prohibition Meeting

The third meeting of states parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York between March 3rd and 7th. The parties adopted a declaration which urged all the countries to join the treaty, regardless they possess nuclear weapons or not. The sufferers of atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki eighty years ago participated in the meeting, giving speeches to appeal inhumanity of nuclear weapons.

Enacted in 2021, the TPNW includes 73 state parties without nuclear weapons, which have ratified the treaty. Although some members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had participated in the second meeting in 2023, they defied the third meeting, concerning growing security concern in Europe, where Russia imposes a great threat through explicit violation of international laws by invading Ukraine.

 

The declaration of the third meeting stressed importance of including all states in the framework of the treaty. “The challenges before us can, and will be, overcome as we progress in bringing every state to join the Treaty, dismantling every warhead, providing justice to all affected communities, and ending the era of nuclear weapons forever,” says the declaration.

 

The meeting was held in the year of eightieth anniversary from the time when nuclear weapons were used for the first time. The declaration congratulated Nihon Hidankyo on being awarded 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its effort to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons. “We solemnly recall the devastating impacts of these weapons on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and acknowledge the countless victims and survivors who have suffered the effects of nuclear weapons and their testing programmes since the dawn of the nuclear age,” notes the declaration.

 

On the opening day of the third meeting, a hibakusha in Hiroshima, Jiro Hamazumi, who exposed to radiation as a fetus, made a speech before the delegations of member states. “Atomic bomb is a weapon of devils, which takes future of the sufferers and torments their families,” said Hamazumi. Appealing that the war had not ended, Hamazumi insisted that he would never give up nuclear disarmament. He finished his speech with request to let the world know and improve the treaty.

 

Japanese government has been inactive to the request of hibakusha to join the treaty. Shigeru Ishiba administration dismissed the request, even though the coalition partner, Komeito, hoped the government to participate in the conference as an observer. It finds a contradiction for Japan, under nuclear umbrella of the United States, to join the treaty which prohibits use and threat of nuclear weapon.

 

“The treaty is incompatible with nuclear deterrence,” said Minister for Foreign Affairs, Takeshi Iwaya, in his press conference in February. That stance of Japanese government faces firm opposition from hibakusha group. “I’m disgusted. Japan’s absence was regrettable, because it must have the better understanding on this issue than any other countries in the world,” an atomic bomb survivor living in Canada, Setsuko Thurlow, said to the press.

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