A-bomb survivors call for elimination of nuclear weapons

[struggle4progress]

Sunday, April 24, 2005 at 17:40 JST

BOSTON — Atomic-bomb survivors appealed to the global community to eliminate nuclear arms at a symposium held near Boston on Saturday ahead of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Five "hibakusha," or atomic-bomb victims, delivered speeches on the second day of the symposium entitled "Hiroshima-Nagasaki 2005: Memories and Visions," held at Tufts University.

The five survivors — four from Hiroshima and one from Nagasaki — said the threat of nuclear weapons is not an illusion of the past, telling the audience that their families would have the same tragedy as experienced by citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a nuclear conflict.

The symposium featured a Canadian documentary film titled "No More Hiroshima," which depicted efforts by survivor Tadahiko Murata to seek the abolition of nuclear arms during his 1982 visit to New York for a U.N. extraordinary meeting on disarmament. <snip>

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