On August 6 and 9, 1945, at the end of World War II, the United States bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A few days later, Japan surrendered. This bombing was a harbinger of the Cold War. The United States wanted to show the Soviet Union that it had nuclear weapons and was not afraid to use them. Eighty years later, as Western leaders drastically increase their military budgets, the risk of a nuclear confrontation still exists.
On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay bomber took off from the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific and dropped the uranium bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima at 8:15 am. A shock wave traveling at 1,583 km/h flattened buildings, while intense heat triggered widespread fires. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people died instantly.
Three days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Bockscar bomber dropped the plutonium bomb Fat Man at 11:02 a.m. The explosion instantly killed between 40,000 and 75,000 people. By the end of 1945, the death toll was estimated at between 90,000 and 166,000 in Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 80,000 in Nagasaki. The bombings hastened Japan’s surrender on August 15, officially ending World War II on September 2, 1945.
Traumatizing the Japanese people and the entire world, this unprecedented violence sparked an ethical debate that continues to this day about the targeting of civilians and the very existence of nuclear weapons. The survivors, known as Hibakusha, have a recognized status in Japan and face serious long-term health consequences, as do their children and grandchildren. Many are now peace activists, using their experiences to warn of the dangers of nuclear weapons, which would be even more devastating if detonated today.
From August 2 to 9, 2025, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hosted the International Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. Marc Botenga, PTB Member of the European Parliament, attended with a delegation from the left-wing party. There, we spoke to Yayoi Tsuchida, peace activist and deputy secretary general of the Organizing Committee of the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (A and H), to learn more about the conference and its relevance in the current geopolitical context.
Klara Ledroit: What is the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs that you are organizing?
Yayoi Tsuchida: The movement against atomic and hydrogen bombs in Japan began in 1954, following the US hydrogen bomb test known as Bravo, carried out on March 1, 1954, on the coral island of Bikini in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The ocean was contaminated by radioactivity and many Japanese fishing boats, as well as the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, suffered as a result.
While the damage caused to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was completely concealed under US military occupation, it was in 1954 that the Japanese people rose up for the first time on a national scale to demand a total ban on A- and H-bombs. 32 million Japanese people signed a petition calling for the prohibition of these bombs, well over half of the total electorate, and almost all local assemblies and both houses of the Japanese Parliament adopted resolutions against these bombs.
On this basis, the first World Conference Against A- and H-Bombs was held from August 6 to 8, 1955. Since then, the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs has been held every August on the basis of three fundamental demands: the prevention of nuclear war, the total prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, and assistance and solidarity with the Hibakusha, the victims of the atomic bomb. The organizing committee is composed of organizations such as anti-nuclear groups, peace groups, trade unions, and national organizations representing different social strata such as youth and women. Anyone in Japan and around the world is welcome to participate, provided they agree with these objectives.
I work as deputy secretary general of the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo). I am in charge of international activities. My organization was founded in 1955 after this popular movement. Since then, we have been working to organize the World Conference every year and to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.
KL: To what extent do the Japanese still feel the impact of the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945?
YT: For seven years after the bombings, all information and publications on the subject were banned by the occupying forces, the United States. However, since the first World Conference in 1955, the victims of the bombings have drawn courage from this event and have been actively involved in sharing their hellish experience. Many schools still organize school trips to Hiroshima or Nagasaki every year. The number of hibakusha was approximately 100,000 at the end of 2023. Although their average age is now over 86, they continue to play an important social role in spreading their message that “human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist,” and we continue to support them.
The Mother Children Statue at the Hiroshima Peace Park. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
KL: Is the issue of nuclear disarmament still relevant today?
YT: Yes, absolutely. Russian leaders have repeatedly suggested that they would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if their vital interests were threatened; North Korea is continuing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs; India and Pakistan have once again been the scene of military clashes; the United States and its allies, including Japan, are making the nuclear threat a key element of their “nuclear deterrence” or “extended deterrence” strategy to ensure their national security, instead of resorting to the peaceful means provided for in the United Nations Charter.
KL: The United States has more than 750 military bases around the world. Japan is home to 31 of them. Can you explain why? And how does the Japanese population perceive their presence?
YT: I would also like to know why! Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution states: “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” The right of belligerency of the state shall not be recognized.”
Therefore, having military forces and hosting foreign military forces on its territory constitutes a violation of the Japanese Constitution.
In fact, Japan is still deeply subordinate to the United States. At the time of independence in 1952, the Security Treaty between the United States and Japan was imposed on Japan because the United States wanted to use Japan as a forward base against North Korea and against the national liberation of Asian countries. (This treaty grants the United States the right, among other things, to maintain armed forces on Japanese territory, editor’s note).
When the Liberal Democratic Party, currently in power, was founded in 1955, the revision of the Constitution and in particular the removal of Article 9 was its main objective. This is still the case today.
At present, Japan has a military force, called the Self-Defense Forces, which operates in close coordination with the US forces. The reason given is to “deal with external threats” and “the deterioration of the security environment.”
Despite this, the Constitution has not been amended. The current government also wants to revise it, but all polls show that the majority of the population wants to keep it, especially Article 9.
KL: How is the peace movement organized in your country and what are your demands?
YT: The driving force behind peace is the Japanese people’s deep desire for a world without nuclear weapons, based on the national experience of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki massacres and the peaceful Constitution mentioned earlier. We affirm that Japan must work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW, signed in 2017 by 94 states), defend the Constitution, and commit to resolving international conflicts through diplomatic means. A recent opinion poll conducted by Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s major national newspapers, shows that 73% of respondents support Japan’s participation in the TPNW, compared to 22% who oppose it. 38% support the US nuclear umbrella, compared to 55% who oppose it, and 68% believe that Japan should be more independent in its diplomacy.
KL: NATO member countries are betting everything on “rearmament,” i.e., a dramatic increase in military spending. Is Japan, a NATO partner, also “rearming”?
YT: Yes. The government, a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and the Komeito (conservative, editor’s note), is taking full advantage of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, China’s advance in the East China Sea to change the territorial status quo, and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic tests to strengthen its dependence on the US’s “extended deterrence” and promote a massive build-up of its military capabilities. All of this is being done at the expense of essential services, people’s lives, peace, and the environment. We affirm that the approach of responding to force with force and to nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons is wrong and very dangerous. We must unite for peace on the basis of the United Nations Charter and for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
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Testimony of Kodama Michiko, survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, Hibakusha (victim)
Kodama Michiko, 87 years old.
Age at the time of the bombings: 7
August 6, 1945: Hell on earth
“At the time of the bombing, I was inside a wooden school building. The ceiling collapsed under the force of the explosion and glass shards flew in all directions. Pieces of glass pierced my left shoulder and arm. On the way home, I witnessed a scene of utter hell, seeing many people with severely burned and peeling skin. “
Long-term consequences for survivors
”Years later, my mother died of cancer and my father died after suffering from two cancers. My daughter, who had grown up healthy and full of life, was suddenly struck by cancer herself. She died suddenly, just four months after the onset of the disease. In 2017, the atomic bomb took the life of my youngest brother, who had multiple myeloid leukemia, and then my younger brother, who was five years old at the time of the bombing and had several cancers.”
The fight for a definitive ban on nuclear weapons is a fight for the survival of humanity
“We know from experience that if nuclear weapons are used, it will be impossible to protect the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. The Hibakusha call for a shift from security based on ”nuclear deterrence” to security based on mutual trust, and for a giant step toward a world without nuclear weapons. The only way to protect our lives and security is to abolish them, so that you, your families, and your loved ones do not become victims of these weapons, and so that the future of the Earth is safe, secure, and full of hope.”
Article 1 – The purposes of the United Nations:
Maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to achieve, by peaceful means and in accordance with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which may lead to a breach of the peace;
Article 2 – Principles of the United Nations
The Members of the United Nations shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
The Members of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force (…).
Klara Ledroit is a member of the Workers’ Party of Belgium and an aide in the European Parliament.
The post 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “Human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist” appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.
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