The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Appeal
1989
Forty four years ago the atomic age was ushered in by the extinction of a quarter of a million lives in a mere instant. Those who survived, the hibakusha, have carried a courageous and compelling witness to the world, though they suffer grievously to this day. IPPNW, assembled in the two victim cities for its Ninth World Congress, has heard in their testimonies a clear message: that with the nuclear bomb, everybody's backyard has become the front line, and that we and our children remain hostages forever to these barbaric weapons.
Positive and profound changes are sweeping the world. In many of these we acknowledge the initiative of President Gorbachev. The USA and the USSR, for the first time in history, have agreed to dismantle one entire class of nuclear weapons. The groundwork is being laid for the elimination of the enormous arsenals of overkill. We physicians welcome these hopeful developments, but we must be frank about nuclear realities. The arms race has shifted from a quantitative competition to a qualititative race for technological supremacy. New and more deadly weapons are on the drawing boards. An atomic test explosion every eight days reminds us that the mad pursuit for nuclear advantage continues.
For over forty years deterrence has purported to justify the possession of nuclear weapons, the accumulation of massive arsenals and now the pursuit of new generations of nuclear weapons. Deterrence is a deception. A single nuclear weapon would inflict unacceptable damage, the intent claimed for deterrence. Governments have no right to threaten entire populations, indeed all of humanity, with extinction.
Proliferation continues unabated as more nations seek admission to the nuclear club. Military expenditures are astronomic and show no sign of being substantially diminished. Resources, both material and human, are squandered as aching health, environmental and social needs are ignored. Numerous crises degrading the human condition cannot be addressed because of a lack of resources.
IPPNW has established an International Commission to investigate the Environmental and Health Effects of Nuclear Weapons Production. We have learned that even before any bomb falls, the production of nuclear weapons has caused massive environmental contamination, with serious risk and damage to public health worldwide. The Commission will seek disclosure and documentation of information that is shrouded in secrecy under the guise of security interests.
From the hypocenter in Hiroshima, IPPNW appeals for a new agenda of moral priorities, one that feeds the hungry and heals the sick rather than nourishes insatiable military appetites. We urge implementation of the following five measure:
- An immediate cessation of all nuclear testing. No other single measure would do more to slow the arms race.
- A halt to the production of bomb grade fissile material. In a world with 60,000 nuclear warheads there is simply no point in manufacturing more. Let this cessation be made permanent and binding by treaty between the superpowers.
- The conversion of the secret weapons laboratories to become open scientific institutes, redirected to address environmental problems.
- A fifty percent reduction in military spending. The vision of health for all by the year 2000, adequate development for poorer nations and the protection of the global environment can be realized only if at least fifty percent of the resources being wasted on the arms race are directed to peaceful resources.
- The establishment of a United Nations Peace Research Center in Hiroshima, as proposed by Mayor Araki, and a scholarship scheme to bring thousands of future world leaders to witness and absorb the meaning of this unprecedented tragedy.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki the seemingly complex issues of nuclear disarmament are clarified. If atomic weapons are never again to be used, the world must permanently sharethe memory and pain of what transpired here.
If we are to share these noble goals, we must take new resolve to no longer search for peace through overt flirtation with mass death. To succeed we must empower millions with moral arousal and with a vision of a world where human beings can truly celebrate the unbreakable unity of the human family.