Oslo / Tokyo:
The Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday as a warning to countries with nuclear weapons not to use them.
Many survivors of the only two nuclear bombs ever used in conflict, known in Japanese as “hibakusha”, have dedicated their lives to the fight for a nuclear weapons-free world.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation that the group received the Peace Prize for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons should never be used again.”
“The hibakusha helps us describe the indescribable, think the unthinkable and somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the commission said.
“I can't believe it's real,” Toshiyuki Mimaki, co-chairman of Nihon Hidankyo, said at a news conference in Hiroshima, the site of the August 6, 1945, atomic bombing during the closing stages of World War II, holding back tears and remembering squeezed. his cheek.
Mimaki, herself a survivor, said the award would give a major boost to her efforts to demonstrate that the abolition of nuclear weapons was necessary and possible, and accused governments of waging wars even as their citizens longed for peace.
“(The victory) will be a great force to appeal to the world that the abolition of nuclear weapons and eternal peace can be achieved,” he said. “Nuclear weapons must absolutely be abolished.”
In Japan, hibakusha, many of whom bore visible wounds from radiation burns or developed radiation-related diseases such as leukemia, were often forcibly separated from society and faced discrimination when seeking employment or getting married in the years after the war.
“They are a group of people who are bringing the message to the world, so as a Japanese I think this is really great,” Tokyo resident Yoshiko Watanabe told Reuters as she openly wept in the street.
As of March this year, Japan had recorded 106,825 atomic bomb survivors, according to Japanese Health Ministry data, with an average age of 85.6 years.
WARNING TO NUCLEAR NATIONS
Without naming specific countries, Joergen Watne Frydnes, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, warned that nuclear countries should not consider using atomic weapons.
“In a world ravaged by conflict, where nuclear weapons are certainly part of it, we wanted to emphasize the importance of strengthening the nuclear taboo, the international norm, against the use of nuclear weapons,” Frydnes told Reuters.
“We find it very alarming that the nuclear taboo … is being reduced by threats, but also by the situation in the world where nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals.”
Frydnes said the world must listen to the “painful and dramatic stories of the hibakusha”.
“These weapons should never again be used anywhere in the world… A nuclear war could mean the end of humanity, (the) end of our civilization,” he said in an interview.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West of possible nuclear consequences since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
He said last month that Russia could use nuclear weapons if hit with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any attack on it backed by a nuclear force as a joint attack.
This month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would accelerate steps to become a military superpower with nuclear weapons and would not rule out their use if it came under enemy attack as the growing conflict in the Middle East has led some experts to speculate that Iran may restart its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb.
SECOND JAPANESE WINNER
Next year will mark 80 years since the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, forcing Japan to surrender.
With the award, the committee drew attention to a “very dangerous situation” in the world, said Dan Smith, head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“If a military conflict breaks out, there is a risk that it will escalate to nuclear weapons… They (Nihon Hidankyo) are really an important voice to remind us of the destructive nature of nuclear weapons,” he told Reuters.
Smith said the committee had achieved “a three-pronged strike”: drawing attention to the human suffering of nuclear bomb survivors; the danger of nuclear weapons; and that the world has been able to survive without its use for almost 80 years.
The award organization has regularly addressed the issue of nuclear weapons, most recently awarding ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the award in 2017.
This year's award also echoes that of Elie Wiesel in 1986 and the Russian Memorial in 2022, by highlighting the importance of keeping the memory of horrific events alive as a warning for the future.
It is the second Nobel Peace Prize for a Japanese recipient in the prize's 123-year history, 50 years after former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato won the prize in 1974.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish kronor, or about one million dollars, will be awarded in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who established the prizes in his 1895 will .
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