US slammed as 'egocentric'

2004-08-06 11:39

Hiroshima - The mayor of Hiroshima slammed the United States for continuing to develop nuclear arms on Friday, the 59th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing which killed tens of thousands of people in this western Japanese city.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meanwhile pledged at a ceremony here to mark the August 6 1945 World War 2 bombing by the US that Japan would stick to its post-1945 war-renouncing constitution.

"The egocentric world view of the US government is reaching extremes," mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said 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.

"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.

Meanwhile, a chain of violence and retaliation around the world showed no sign of ending, he said.

Cumulative death toll - 237 062

"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.

As the clock clicked onto 8:15, the exact time the United States dropped the bomb code-named "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 5 142 atomic bomb suffers who died or were confirmed dead during the past year.

The additions brought the cumulative death toll associated with the effects of the bombing to 237 062.

The Hiroshima bombing was followed by the dropping of a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on August 9 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 World War II in the Pacific theatre.

The mayor also declared the period from Friday to August 9, 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."

"We, as the only atomic-bombed nation, will abide by the pacifist constitution under the firm resolve no to repeat the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said.

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 on the United States.

"We have a grave duty in today's critical situation ...," Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Suffers Organisations head Sunao Tsuboi said.

- AFP