Survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima have reacted angrily to an agreement that links the city’s peace park with a memorial in Pearl Harbor.
The sister-park agreement, signed this week by the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, and the mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, is designed to promote peace and friendship between the former Pacific war enemies.
“Nobody can go to Pearl Harbor, and nobody can go to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and enter the front door, walk out the exit door and be the same person,” Emanuel said at a signing ceremony at the US Embassy in Tokyo.
“I think the hope here is that we inspire people from all over the United States and all over Japan to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial and to visit Pearl Harbor so they can learn the spirit of reconciliation.”
The Hiroshima peace park and the Pearl Harbor National Memorial of Hawaii will promote exchanges and share experiences of restoring historic structures and landscapes, as well as youth education and tourism, media reports said.
“The sister arrangement between the two parks related to the beginning and end of the war will be a proof that mankind, despite making the mistake of waging a war, can come to its senses, reconcile and pursue peace,” Matsui said.
But representatives of hibakusha – survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – condemned the agreement as inappropriate, arguing that while the Pearl Harbor attack targeted a naval base, the bombing of Hiroshima indiscriminately killed large numbers of civilians.
Haruko Moritaki, an A-bomb victim and adviser to the Hiroshima Association for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, said the agreement was an “insult” to survivors. “The historical backgrounds of the two parks will forever be different,” she told the Chugoku Shimbun newspaper.
Several groups wrote to the Hiroshima city government asking Matsui not to sign the agreement, saying the two wartime attacks were “not something we should forgive each other for,” according to the Nikkei Asia paper. “They are historic lessons to learn from and never repeat.”
Kunihiko Sakuma, chairman of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organisations, said that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima had been unnecessary. “It did not end the war and save the lives of American soldiers, as the US claims,” he told the Nikkei. “It was clear that Japan was going to lose. Unless that fundamental issue is addressed, we can’t just focus on the future.”
More than 2,300 US service personnel were killed in Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 – an event that brought America into the Pacific war.
About 80,000 people died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing on 6 August 1945, with the death toll rising to 140,000 by the end of the year. Another 70,000 people died in Nagasaki on 9 August, six days before Japan surrendered.
Emanuel said he was aware of the objections raised by hibakusha groups. “I understand anguish and angst is an emotion, but I don’t think you should be trapped by that,” he said, adding that reconciliation between the US and Japan “is the example of what I think this world desperately needs right now”.
The two sites have been associated with reconciliation since Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, in May 2016. The then Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, made a reciprocal visit to Pearl Harbor in December same year.
In a statement to mark the sister-park agreement, Obama said his and Abe’s visits had been the “key steps in deepening the alliance between our two nations,” and described the Hiroshima-Pearl Harbor agreement as “another historic accomplishment”.
“By connecting our two peoples to our shared past, we can build a shared future grounded in peace and cooperation,” Obama said.
Shigeru Mori, a hibakusha who met Obama in Hiroshima, said he welcomed the agreement. “Pearl Harbor is a painful place for Americans to remember the war,” he said, according to the Chugoku Shimbun. “I want Japan and the US to join hands and do their best to work for peace.”
Associated Press contributed reporting
• This article was amended on 30 June 2023 to correct the spelling of Pearl Harbor in the headline.
