An Appeal From Hiroshima To U.S. President and Japanese Prime Minister

An Appeal From Hiroshima to U.S. President Barack Obama

and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo

On August 15, 1945, Japan officially surrendered to the Allied nations following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, which indiscriminately killed over 210 thousand people, mostly civilians, including 40 thousand Koreans. The US proudly claimed this a “victory of freedom and democracy” against Japanese militarism and fascism. In fact the real aim of the U.S. was to demonstrate the power of the mass destruction of the newly produced atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Strategically, the use of a nuclear weapon was not at all necessary to end the Asia-Pacific War. Emperor Hirohito and other wartime Japanese military and political leaders were also responsible for this indiscriminate massacre by the atomic bombing because they delayed the official surrender until they had secured a guarantee from the Allied Nations that Japan’s “national polity” i.e., the Japanese emperor system and Hirohito’s life, would be preserved.

President Truman justified this genocide with the ironic excuse that it was “to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians,” and to end the long-lasting bloody war in the Asia-Pacific. In this way the US created a myth so as to evade responsibility for its grave war crime. On August 10, 1945, the Japanese government denounced the atrocity of using a nuclear weapon as a serious war crime. It was, however, the first and only protest that the Japanese government ever issued regarding the atomic bombing, and was not supported by any other nation. Thus, the justification of the use of nuclear weapons as an effective means to achieve a “victory of freedom and democracy” was widely accepted. As a consequence, the opportunity to thoroughly examine the criminality of nuclear weapons was lost.  

           

In other words, the opportunity to expose the fact that the American motto “justice is power” had been reversed to mean “power (i.e. nuclear weapons) is justice” was lost. Indeed, the universal principle of “justice is power” was exploited by the U.S. to cover up its grave war crime of using nuclear weapons, so this principle lost its substance. This is the reason that the truly criminal nature of nuclear weapons has still not been clearly addressed, thereby preventing universal knowledge and recognition of this fact. The use of nuclear weapons in any form is a crime against humanity, and the possession of nuclear weapons or nuclear deterrents is a crime against peace, because it is preparation for committing a crime against humanity.

 

On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito stated in his Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War that his government had decided to surrender because of the inhumane atomic bombs. By singling out the atomic bombings as the decisive factor in the decision to surrender, Hirohito was able to completely ignore the war crimes committed by the Japanese military across Asia and the Pacific, as well as the anti-Japanese resistance that was taking place throughout Asia. In addition, he exploited the A-bomb damage to indirectly justify the war as a “war to liberate Asia.” In this way, the atomic bombings became a means to conceal not only the war responsibility of the emperor himself and other wartime leaders, but also the responsibility of the Japanese people for a war in the name of the Japanese empire that took tens of millions of lives throughout the Asia-Pacific. Just as President Truman fabricated a myth to cover up the US government’s responsibility for its grave war crimes, so, too, did the Japanese government use the same A-Bomb attacks to conceal its war responsibilities.

As soon as Japan surrendered, the Japanese government adopted the national doctrine of “National Confession of Japanese War Guilt,” claiming that the entire nation was responsible for the war. The real purpose of this doctrine was to obscure who was actually responsible, thus evading the responsibility of wartime leaders including Hirohito. In addition, Hirohito was falsely presented as a peace-loving war-victim who had been politically used and manipulated by a small group of militarists. Because of this myth, Hirohito was perceived by the Japanese people as the symbol of war victimization for the entire nation. Consequently, the feeling that can be called “National Sentiment of Japanese War Victimhood,” soon infiltrated the country and completely replaced the concept “National Confession of Japanese War Guilt.” As a result, all other Asian victims of Japanese war atrocities were excluded from the Japanese sense of war victimhood, and even Korean A-bomb victims were not acknowledged for a long time as victims of the atomic bombing. Moreover, the atomic bombing became politically exploited to present Japan as the war victim nation. Due to this exploitation of the people’s suffering, Japan failed to properly pursue the U.S. and hold it accountable for the crime against humanity that killed many civilians indiscriminately. In other words, because as a nation Japan does not openly recognize the criminality of the many brutal acts it committed against other Asian peoples or its own responsibility for those acts, it cannot expose the significance of similar crimes that the United States perpetrated against the Japanese people.

Many people in Japan are caught in a vicious cycle: precisely because they do not thoroughly interrogate the criminality of the brutal acts the U.S. committed against them or pursue U.S. responsibility for those acts, they are incapable of considering the pain suffered by the victims (Asian peoples) of their own crimes or the gravity of their responsibility for these crimes. Such Japanese mentality can be called a “sense of war victimhood without identifying victimizers.”

This is the reason why Japan has willingly subordinated itself to US military control, although it has never been trusted by neighboring Asian nations, and cannot establish a peaceful relationship with them.

In Japan we are currently confronting a depressing political and social situation with many grave problems, including racially motivated hate-speech, various types of sexual violence and oppressive educational policies. Indeed this undemocratic, social climate is closely related to 
the failure to carefully examine both the US responsibility for the indiscriminate mass killing caused by the atomic bombings and Japan’s responsibility for war crimes it committed against people throughout the Asia-Pacific. This is mainly because we have failed to fulfill justice through democratic procedures based upon a clear sense of responsibility. In particular, a recent series of undemocratic and anti-human rights policies introduced by Abe Shinzo’s government are a clear manifestation of problems that stem from this failure and which have accumulated over the past 70 years. These are: the enactment of the Secret Information Protection Act; the introduction of unconstitutional Security-related legislation; the construction of a new U.S. military base at Henoko in Okinawa; the virtual disapproval of both the Kono Statement on the so-called “comfort women” system, and the Murayama Statement on Japan’s war of aggression; and the plan to resume nuclear power plant operations.

Clearly, we need to re-examine both the atomic bombing and Japanese wartime atrocities from the viewpoint of “crimes against humanity.” In thus doing, we should aim to establish international solidarity of civil movements, banding together to work against the possession of nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, and any form of military violence. We should reconfirm that Article 9 of Japan’s constitution is the foundation of our initiatives for such grass-root movements. Article 9, a concept initially conceived by Prime Minister Shidehara Kijuro shortly after the war, and eagerly supported by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas Macarthur, was formulated as a result of intense discussion at the Diet, clearly reflecting the strong desire for peace held by the Japanese people at the time.         

Article 9 was established as a result of experiences of and reflections upon colonialism, militarism and nuclear destruction. Its fundamental philosophy is that “no one has the right to kill another person whatever the reason may be, and no one should be killed for any reason.” Both the indiscriminate mass killing by the atomic bombing and the Japanese wartime atrocities were brutal and destructive violence, which clearly violated the universal principle of the spirit of Article 9. Indeed, it could be said that the perfunctory call for “a world without nuclear weapons” or “the establishment of a peaceful Asia” without acknowledging responsibility for the above atrocities is not simply a sham, but also a betrayal of humanity and contradictory to the spirit of Article 9.      

On the basis of this argument, we in Hiroshima, do request a sincere apology from the US President Mr. Barack Obama and the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Abe Shinzo to the victims of the various grave war crimes that both nations committed respectively during the Asia-Pacific War. These include the indiscriminate atomic and fire bombings of many Japanese cities, the massacre of many citizens in the Asia Pacific, and the sexual violence against women. We request both Mr. Obama and Mr. Abe to acknowledge the responsibility of their individual nations, and swiftly formulate policies of indemnity for the surviving victims.

Kuno Naruaki, Tanaka Yuki, Yokohara Yukio

on behalf of the following 388 individuals and eight civil groups:

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Kuno Naruaki, Tanaka Yuki, Yokohara Yukio

1-5-5-1001, Sakai-Machi, Naka-Ku, Hiroshima City

730-0853 Japan

E-mail: suizentanaka@gmail.com