Not many will remember or know the exact date and the media did little to remind us all. This, in my opinion, is very sad, and very concerning. Especially with the present state of events. Things are volatile and who knows where it will lead.
Fortunately Aug 6th will never be forgotten in the political circles. Let us hope it remains that way.
Here is a flash file I found on english.aljazeera.net. CLICK HERE
Japan remembers Hiroshima horrors
Saturday 07 August 2004, 1:56 Makka Time, 22:56 GMT The mayor of Hiroshima
has slammed the United States for continuing to develop nuclear arms.?
His criticism came on?the 59th anniversary of the world’s first atomic
bombing which killed tens of thousands of people in this Japanese city.
“The egocentric world view of the US government is reaching extremes,” Mayor
Tadatoshi Akiba said on Friday at the ceremony held against the backdrop of
the Atomic Bomb Dome, the preserved ruins of one of the few buildings not flattened
by the blast.
Iraqi Doctor Hussam Salih?was among those present. From Basra, Salih
is in Hiroshima studying cancer and leukemia treatments.
“Ignoring the United Nations and its foundation of international law,
the United States has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and
more usable,” the mayor told 45,000 people at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Park.
Chain of violence
Meanwhile, a chain of violence and retaliation around the world showed no
sign of ending, he said.
“Reliance on violence-amplifying terror and North Korea, among others,
buying into the worthless policy of ‘nuclear insurance’ are salient symbols
of our times,” he said.
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Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meanwhile pledged that Japan would stick
to its post-1945 war-renouncing constitution.
As the clock clicked onto 8:15 am (2315 GMT Thursday), the exact time the
US dropped the bomb codenamed Little Boy, those at the ceremony bowed their
heads for a minute’s silence in memory of victims of the attack.
Around 140,000 people – almost half the city’s population of the time – died
immediately or in the months after the dropping of the 20 kiloton atomic bomb,
from radiation injuries or horrific burns.
During Friday’s ceremony officials added to the existing toll the names of
5142 atomic bomb sufferers who died or were confirmed dead during the past
year.
Cumulative toll
The additions brought the cumulative death toll associated with the effects
of the bombing to 237,062.
“We have to pass
stories of our suffering from generation to generation and appeal more to the
public about the terrible nature of nuclear weapons”
Sunao Tsuboi, head of Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers
Organisations
The Hiroshima bombing was followed by the dropping of a second atomic bomb
on the city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, leaving tens of thousands more dead.
The appalling loss of life among ordinary Japanese was credited with forcing
Japan to surrender six days later, ending the second world war II in the Pacific
theatre.
The mayor also declared the period from Friday to 9 August 2005 to be a year
of “Remembrance and Action for a Nuclear-Free World”, while calling
on Americans to act as “a people of conscience”.
The head of a group of survivors of the bombs said they were “boiling
with anger” over global stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the spreading
violence since the September 2001 attacks.
“We have a grave duty in today’s critical situation …,” Hiroshima
Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organisations head Sunao Tsuboi
said.
“We have to pass stories of our suffering from generation to generation
and appeal more to the public about the terrible nature of nuclear weapons,” he
said.
AFP