Peace Lanterns > Message from Mayor of Hiroshima

The Third Annual East Bay

Japanese Peace Lantern Ceremony
Message from Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima
To the 2004 Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony

 

August 7, 2004

I send this message to mark the opening of the Third Annual Japanese Peace Lantern Ceremony.

Based on our atomic bomb experience of 59 years ago, the city of Hiroshima has consistently called for lasting, genuine world peace and the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we remain bound by chains of hatred, violence and retaliation, our planet still bristles with vast arsenals of nuclear weapons, and the probability that these heinous weapons will be used is actually increasing.

Here in Hiroshima we greatly fear the apparent global fading of the memory of the atomic bombing. Therefore, by promoting establishment of Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Courses in colleges and universities around the world, we are seeking to convey to future generations the facts of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the primary message of our A-bomb survivors or hibakusha, that such a tragedy must never be repeated anywhere on Earth. In addition, primarily through the World Conference of Mayors for Peace, which now boasts* 611 city members in 109 countries and territories, we are conducting an Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons. This campaign is designed to press the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2005 to adopt a plan that would culminate in the signing of a nuclear weapons convention in 2010 and the total elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020.

The campaign has already received formal support in resolutions passed by the European Parliament and by the US Conference of Mayors, which has 1,183 city members. Our task now is to expand this circle of support. Therefore, we have designated the one-year period from August 6, 2004 to August 9, 2005 to be a Year of Remembrance and Action for a Nuclear-Free World, and we are calling on all our allies in this struggle to take some form of action to demand the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In this context, your Japanese Peace Lantern Ceremony takes on profound significance, and I hereby express my great respect to all involved for your devotion to peace. I know that you will all join us this year in praying, speaking and acting every day in ways we hope will spread the circle of solidarity for world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons, leading to a genuinely peaceful world free from nuclear weapons and liberated from hatred and fear.

I close with my best wishes for the success of your ceremony as well as growth and good health for all who participate.
 

Tadatoshi Akiba
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima

__________________

*Editor's note: Berkeley and San Francisco are among the members of the World Conference of Mayors for Peace.

 

Email:  Lanterns2004-AT-ProgressivePortal.org (change "-AT-" to "@")
Phone:  (510) 595-4626

 

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