FOR A NUCLEAR – WEAPONS – FREE WORLD

79 years ago today, on 6^th August 1945, the United States air-force dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. As a result of the blast and firestorm that followed, together with the terrible impact of the radiation released by the explosion, around 140,000 people were dead by December 1945. The death toll reached around 200,000 by the end of 1950. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped by the US on the city of Nagasaki. A total of around 140,000 were killed in Nagasaki.

Although the US authorities claimed that it was necessary to use the atomic bomb to end the Second World War, in fact, the Japanese government was already trying to surrender. The images from that terrible war crime have been etched in the minds of succeeding generations. There has been enormous popular mobilisation over the decades, and much work has been done by anti-nuclear states to prevent these weapons ever being used again – to secure their abolition.

Yet while the global majority honours the memory of those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and pays tribute to the survivors – the hibaksha – who seek a word free of nuclear weapons, a small number of states continue to hold nuclear weapons, and to threaten their use. In the past few years, global nuclear arsenals have increased, having been in steady decline since the end of the Cold War. There is talk of ‘usable’ nuclear weapons, of ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons, normalising the idea that nuclear weapons could be used. This would be a catastrophe for humanity and all forms of life.

On this most tragic of anniversaries, we recommit to a world free of nuclear weapons, to support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to strengthen our opposition to militarism and war.