A 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has sent a message to Keir Starmer on nuclear weaponry – warning that victims of the weapons are being abandoned today just as they were 80 years ago.
Speaking to The National after a Nuclear Survivors Meeting at a UN summit on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), Jiro Hamasumi urged Starmer to consider what using a nuclear weapons actually means, after the UK Prime Minister reaffirmed his support for the technology.
Hamasumi was still in his mother’s womb when she survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. After the explosion, they only managed to find his father’s belt buckle and keys – and he lost seven more relatives to the effect of radiation within a year.
Now 79, he is the assistant secretary general of the Japanese group Nihon Hidankyo, which was set up in 1956 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for their work campaigning against nuclear weapons and for their victims.
Speaking in New York and through a translator, Hamasumi recounted how he believed the Japanese and US governments had “abandoned” the survivors of atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – until Nihon Hidankyo was founded and they were forced to listen.
He went on: “I talked about these 11 years where we, the atomic bomb survivors, were abandoned. We talked with different nuclear victim communities today, and I think the same situation applies more or less to many countries or regions that have suffered extremely from nuclear harm.
“I had a feeling that some of the victims are still not sure about what to ask for from the government. People were saying we want medical support, but it shouldn't be just medical support because nuclear weapons and nuclear testing destroyed entire communities … It's life. Emotions, mind, body, life. Everything was destroyed.
“The harm should not be limited to the effects of radiation, but we should, again, a comprehensive approach should be taken.
“So in that aspect, I think sharing and international cooperation is essential, and again I want to highlight that the suffering or abandonment is ongoing.
“From that perspective as well, I think with nuclear-weapon states joining this treaty, that's when we can finally stand at the starting point [of nuclear weapon abolition].”
He said: “France issuing such a statement in the midst of a meeting of states party of the TPNW. I would like to ask, what are you thinking?”
Asked then about the UK Prime Minister’s statement on Monday – “if ever there was a time to reaffirm support for the nuclear deterrent, it is now” – Hamasumi said: “When a country like the UK says nuclear weapons are necessary, let me put it this way, they assume enemy countries, they are saying the nuclear weapons are necessary in relation to these countries.
“But we hibakusha [victims of nuclear weaponry] have a very different approach to nuclear weapons.
“We have been saying that nuclear weapons should never be used again, and all these years, that simple message is what we have been calling for.
“If the UK Prime Minister is saying now is the time to support nuclear weapons, I would reject that message.
“I would like those leaders to think about what will happen when a nuclear weapon is used – and if they know what will happen when a nuclear weapon is detonated, they should not be able to support the idea of even having nuclear testing.”
Speaking alongside Hamasumi was Park Jung Soon, a 92-year-old South Korean who was 12 and living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped.
She added: “Young people nowadays have no experience of war, no experience of nuclear bombing.
“Whenever, we talk about our experience they hear with one ear and it goes out another.
“Our generation, as a parent generation, should make sure that our young people know how terrible and how dangerous nuclear weapons are – they bring genocide of entire populations.
“All of the powerful nations with this greed should stop having nuclear weapons, not only the UK.”
