Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, an unwavering advocate for nuclear disarmament – Technologist

Against a backdrop of growing global conflict and a renewed threat of the use of nuclear weapons, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s largest organization of survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The organization is being honored “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” explained the Norwegian Nobel committee on Friday, October 11.

“It’s like a dream. I can’t believe it,” said a tearful Toshiyuki Mimaki, hibakusha (bombing survivor) and member of Nihon Hidankyo, who watched the announcement live from Hiroshima City Hall. “I can picture the faces of my predecessors who had wished for there never to be an incident that would lead to the creation of hibakusha ever again,” added Sueichi Kido, the organization’s secretary general.

Currently visiting Laos, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba praised Nihon Hidankyo’s long-standing efforts, calling the award “extremely significant.” This is the first time Japan has won the Nobel Peace Prize since former prime minister Eisaku Sato (1901-1975) was honored in 1974. Sato was recognized for establishing three fundamental principles concerning nuclear energy in Japan: not to manufacture, possess or introduce atomic weapons on Japanese territory. He also signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

‘Don’t relive our suffering’

Nihon Hidankyo was founded in 1956, 11 years after the bombings carried out by the US on August 6 and 9, 1945, at the end of the Second World War, which killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki and nurtured a powerful pacifist movement led by the hibakusha.

The organization was created during the height of opposition against atomic and hydrogen bombs in a Japan deeply affected by the tragedy of the crew of the tuna boat Daigo Fukuryu, exposed in 1954 to radiation from the American hydrogen bomb test in Bikini Atoll in the heart of the Pacific. “Humanity must never again inflict nor suffer the sacrifice and torture we have experienced,” the organization said in its founding statement.

During the Cold War, Nihon Hidankyo sent delegations to the UN on three occasions. In 1982, Senji Yamaguchi (1930-2013) was the first Hibakusha to speak at the UN Special Session on Disarmament. He called for “no more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki, no more war, no more hibakusha.”

Nihon Hidankyo played a key role in the development of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TIAN), which was signed in 2017 and came into force in 2021, prohibiting the development and possession of nuclear weapons. The organization had collected three million signatures in favor of adopting the convention. It has now gathered 13.7 million to convince non-signatory countries – the US, Russia, China, France and Japan – to ratify it. So far, to no avail. Nihon Hidankyo is now concerned about the aging of its members, whose average age exceeds 85. Their powerful testimonies resonated strongly with the message.

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