MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nagasaki Mayor launches “Never Again!” cry

Nuclear weapons “exist, so they can be used,” Taue underlined

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue and other speakers during Tuesday's ceremony marking the 77th anniversary of the second atom bomb dropped on Japanese soil by the United States at the end of World War II insisted that theirs should be the last tragedy ever of that nature.

 On August 9, 1945, some 74,000 people died in Nagasaki three days after the Hiroshima bombing.

Taue insisted that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February this year, the world is once again on the brink of nuclear confrontation and begged world leaders from ever again going that far.

“In January this year, leaders of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China issued a joint statement stating that 'a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought.'” But “the following month Russia invaded Ukraine. Threats were made about the use of nuclear weapons that sent shivers throughout the world,” he added.

During Tuesday's ceremony, the Nagasaki Survivors Choir (all of them aged over 80) performed for the last time singing a song dedicated to the hibakusha, Japanese for survivors, both from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who have committed their lives to the suppression of all nuclear weapons.

The belief that even though nuclear weapons are possessed they probably will not be used is a fantasy, a mere hope at best. “They exist, so they can be used.” We must recognize that ridding ourselves of nuclear weapons is the only realistic way of protecting the Earth and humankind's future at this very moment, Taue highlighted.

“As a nation with a Constitution that renounces war, Japan must exercise leadership in pursuing peace diplomacy within international society, especially during times of peace.

”As a nation possessing the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, instead of moving towards 'nuclear sharing' or other forms of dependency on nuclear weapons, please lead the way in debate that will achieve progress in the direction of non-nuclear dependency, such as promoting discussions on the Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone concept.

“People of the world, every day we see and hear the reality of war through the television and social media. The daily lives of many people are being devoured by the fires of war. The use of atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki was due to war. War always causes suffering for us, the ordinary people living in civil society. And that is precisely why it is so important that we raise our voices and say ”war is no good,” Taue also pointed out.