This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Terumi Tanaka, representative of Japan Hidankyo (Japan Federation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Victims’ Associations), gave a speech at the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony held at Oslo City Hall, Norway, on December 10th. lower. , 2024. Photo credit: AP
Japan’s atomic bomb survivors’ organization, Nippon Hidankyo, on Tuesday (December 10, 2024) received the Nobel Peace Prize and urged countries to abolish the weapon, which has reemerged as a threat 80 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I appealed.
Terumi Tanaka, a 92-year-old Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor and one of the three co-chairmen of Nippon Hidankyo who accepted the award, called for “action by governments around the world” to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
The award was presented at a formal ceremony at Oslo City Hall at a time when countries such as Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, are increasingly posing nuclear threats.
Nobel Prize 2024: Interactive Guide
“I am deeply saddened and angered that the ‘nuclear taboo’ is under threat of being broken,” Tanaka said of the gathering, dressed in traditional Norwegian bunads and Japanese kimonos. He spoke to dignitaries and guests.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly used nuclear threats to deter the West and win the war in Ukraine, and in mid-November he signed a decree lowering the standards for using nuclear weapons.
Days later, in an attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the Russian military demonstrated a new hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but in this case launched a conventional payload instead.
Nippon Hidankyo relies on the testimonies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as “atomic bomb survivors,” to work tirelessly to rid the earth of weapons of mass destruction.
(On August 6 and 9, 1945, American bombing of two Japanese cities killed 214,000 people and led to Japan’s surrender and the end of World War II.
burnt corpse
Tanaka was 13 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, just 3 kilometers west of her home. Five members of his family were killed.
He was reading a book on the second floor when the atomic bomb was dropped.
“I heard an explosion, and suddenly I saw a bright white light, everything was engulfed, and everything went silent,” he recalled.
“I was really surprised. I felt like my life was in danger.”
As he rushed to the first floor, two glass doors blown out by the explosion fell on him, and although the glass did not break, he lost consciousness.
“It’s a miracle.”
Three days later, he and his mother set out to find relatives. It was then that they realized the scale of the disaster.
“When we got to the ridge beyond the hill, we could look down on the city, and only then could we see that there was nothing left. Everything was charred black.”
He saw seriously injured people fleeing the city and burnt bodies lying on both sides of the road. He and his mother cremated his aunt’s body “with their own hands.”
“I was numb and couldn’t feel anything.”
The status of Nippon Hidankyo is declining year by year. The Japanese government still lists approximately 106,800 “atomic bomb survivors” who are still alive. Their average age is 85 years old.
“Keep the nuclear taboo”
Nuclear threats to the West also come from North Korea, which has increased its ballistic missile tests, and from Iran, which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons, although it denies it.
Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: Britain, China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United States, and, unofficially, Israel.
“There is no doubt that our movement has played a major role in creating the ‘nuclear taboo,'” Tanaka said.
“However, there are still 12,000 nuclear warheads left on Earth today, 4,000 of which are operationally deployed and ready to fire.”
In 2017, 122 governments negotiated and adopted the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), but the document is considered largely symbolic as no nuclear-weapon states have signed it.
All ambassadors in Oslo were invited to Tuesday’s ceremony, but the only nuclear-armed states in attendance were Britain, France, India, Pakistan and the United States. According to the Nobel Institute, Russia, China, Israel and Iran did not attend.
Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Jørgen Watne Fridnes has expressed concern that the world is entering a “new, more unstable nuclear age” and has expressed concern that “a nuclear war could destroy our civilization.” “There is,” he warned.
“Today’s nuclear weapons…have far more destructive power than the two bombs used against Japan in 1945. They instantly killed millions of us and left many more to die. “It could cause serious damage and catastrophic disruption to the climate,” he warned.
This year’s Nobel Prizes in other fields (medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics) will be awarded at separate ceremonies in Stockholm.
issued – December 10, 2024 7:23 PM IST
