Foreign Desk Report
NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday marked 75 years since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki with tributes for the hibakusha (the survivors), who transformed their decades-long plight into a warning about the perils of nuclear weapons and an example of the triumph of the human spirit.
“Your example should provide the world with a daily motivation to eliminate all nuclear weapons,” said Guterres in a statement delivered in Nagasaki by Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. “Sadly,” he said, “three-quarters of a century after this city was incinerated by an atomic bomb, the nuclear menace is once again on the rise.”
In remarks delivered to the Peace Memorial Ceremony, the UN chief hailed Nagasaki as a true example of resilience, recovery and reconciliation. “Citizens of Nagasaki are not defined by the atomic bombing, but they are dedicated to ensuring such a catastrophe never befalls another city or people,” he said, adding that the international community remains grateful for that dedication to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.
Yet while the resilience of the people of Nagasaki and the venerable, long-suffering hibakusha “should provide the world with a daily motivation to eliminate all nuclear weapons,” the Secretary-General warned that the prospect of nuclear weapons being used intentionally, by accident or miscalculation, is dangerously high.
The UN chief said that while nuclear weapons are being modernized to become stealthier, more accurate, faster and more dangerous, the relationships between nuclear-armed States are precarious defined by distrust, a lack of transparency and dearth of dialogue.
“Nuclear sabres are being rattled, with bellicose rhetoric not seen since the Cold War,” he stated.
Moreover, the historic progress in nuclear disarmament is in jeopardy, as the web of instruments and agreements designed to reduce the danger of nuclear weapons and bring about their elimination is crumbling, he said. The U.S. bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, killed an estimated 70,000 people three days after a bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 140,000. They were followed by Japan’s surrender, ending World War II.
“We must use the tenth review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)to restart our joint efforts. We must continue to uphold the norm against nuclear testing. And we must protect and further strengthen the international nuclear disarmament regime,” said the Secretary-General, as he looks forward to the entry into force of Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an “important” new element.
