Remembering the Victims of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb

Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) annual commemoration for the victims of the Hiroshima atomic bomb will take place this Sunday, 6th August, at 1.10 p.m. at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin 2.

Ms Midori Yamamitsu, Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission at the Japanese Embassy in Ireland, and Cllr Larry O'Toole, representing the Lord Mayor of Dublin, will speak at the ceremony. There will be short contributions of poetry and music from Irish and Japanese artists (weather permitting) and the laying of a wreath at the memorial tree. Representatives of several other embassies will also be in attendance.

According to Roger Cole of PANA, the two atomic bombs that were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 represent the greatest acts of terrorism in human history. The USA didn’t bomb strategic targets from a military point of view such as weapons factories, choosing not one but two heavily populated cities, and slaughtering 200,000 innocent people with the aim of creating terror. It wasn’t a decision to end a war, but rather a deliberately cruel act to demonstrate to the world their superior strength.

There are still people who justify these acts of terror from a military, political and even humanitarian perspective, as there are people who will justify the disastrous activities of modern day US imperialism around the world.

According to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditure rose to $1686 billion in 2016 and continues to rise in 2017, alongside this there are approximately 16,500 nuclear weapons in the world… sadly we have enough weaponry and enough people with that imperialist mindset to destroy life on earth as we know it many times over.

The Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) will be supporting this important Irish CND annual event and calls on that even broader alliance of human rights activists, including those highlighting the dangers from neoliberal globalisation and climate change to stand together for world peace and in solidarity with the victims of all these horrific weapons of mass destruction.

To confirm this statement please contact,

Tom Crilly,

Communications Officer, PANA,

14, Hastings Street,

Ringsend,

Dublin 4

Mobile 00353 (0) 87 2937558

For more information;

Dr David Hutchinson Edgar, Chairperson, Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Via Irish CND Website www.irishcnd.blogspot.ie and the Irish CND Facebook.

The SIPRI Military Expenditure Database is accessible at www.sipri.org.