Nearly 150 Japanese Mayors urge G8 towards nuclear abolition
May 31, 2008
Nearly 150 mayors and local assembly leaders in Hokkaido (northern Japan) urge the Japanese Government to raise the total abolition of nuclear weapons as a priority issue for the coming G8 Summit.
Almost 150 Mayors urge G8 leaders to decide on nuclear abolition at next Summit in Hokkaido
Gensuikyo in Hokkaido, the Japan's northernmost island, will soon announce that of the total of 180 municipalities in the prefecture, 87 mayors, 12 deputy mayors and 50 chairpersons of municipal assemblies have endorsed a letter to the Japanese Government, urging that as the government of the world's only A-bombed country it should raise the "abolition of nuclear weapons" for the agenda of the coming G8 Summit meeting at Toyako, Hokkaido.
As part of the nationwide Peace March for a Total Ban on A and H Bombs, the Hokkaido course of the march started on May 6. Marchers visited mayors, local assembly chairpersons and other municipal leaders at each city, town or village that they passed through, to ask for their support of their demand for the total abolition of nuclear weapons and for their endorsement of the draft letter to the Japanese Government, which will host the G8 Summit Conference due to take place on July 7-9 at Toyako, Hokkaido.
The letter, while hoping that the Japanese government will take the initiative in resolving the problems covered by the Summit's four themes, specifically points out that despite the past agreements reached at the NPT Review Conference and at the UN Summit Meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons, the G8 Summit conferences have constantly limited the issue to the "non-proliferation," and that unfortunately this is again the case for the coming Toyako Summit. However, if those actually having huge nuclear arsenals keep ignoring their weapons and even trying to justify them, not only will a nuclear weapon-free world never be achieved, but they will also lose a moral ground on which to urge other countries not to develop their nuclear arsenals.
The proposal formulated in the letter says: We urge that the government of Japan, as the host and the only A-bombed country, should raise "abolition of nuclear weapons" for the agenda of the Summit and related ministerial conferences, and that it should set out a course of actions to achieve this goal, including the start of negotiations, to prepare for the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The letter also urges the government to seize the opportunity to make known to the world the damage wrought by the A-bombings, by inviting A-bomb sufferers to speak and exhibiting A-bomb photographs and other materials.
Hokkaido Gensuikyo will officially break this news, with the list of mayors and chairpersons, at the press conference on June 4. With other peace and social justice groups it will also host a symposium on "Nuclear Weapon-Free, War-Free, Peaceful and Just World" on July 5 in Sapporo, Hokkaido's capital city.
