Hiroshima Survivors at Nobel Peace Prize conferral to Campaign against Nuclear Arms
The award was accepted by Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the Ican (International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons) and by Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow. The ceremony was snubbed by the ambassadors of the USA, France, Great Britain. The treaty for the ban on nuclear weapons was approved by 122 nations, but not by the nine nuclear powers. So far it has received only three ratifications. The support of Pope Francis.
Oslo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Many survivors (hibakushi) of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in were present. The two atomic bombs launched by the US at the end of the Second World War, caused over 220 thousand deaths. On the other hand, perhaps in disregard of the winners of the prize, there were no ambassadors representing three nuclear powers: The United States, France, Great Britain, who sent second-level representatives.
A survivor withdrew the prize: Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old Japanese from Hiroshima, who now lives in Canada. As an ICAN activist, Thurlow recalled when she, buried under the rubble of Hiroshima, sought the light and took courage not to give up hope and make her way to the light that filtered under the ruins.
"Our light - she said - is now the treaty banning nuclear weapons. I repeat the words I heard in me in the ruins of Hiroshima: Do not lose heart. Keep pushing, see the light? Crawl towards it".
Thurlow refers to a commitment made by the ICAN - a coalition of hundreds of NGOs around the world - which has drawn up a treaty banning nuclear weapons, generally adopted by 122 UN nations. The treaty is an exceptional historical fact, although weakened by the fact that the nine nuclear powers (USA, France, Great Britain, Russia, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Israel) have not signed it.
So far only three nations - the Holy See, Guyana and Thailand - have ratified it. But to be binding, it needs 50 ratifications.
Ican executive director Beatrice Fihn, who accepted the award along with Thurlow, said that, even if it is late to be ratified, the treaty is at least "a clear rule against nuclear weapons ... This is a step forward. There is only one way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons: to ban and eliminate them ".
In her speech, Fihn hinted at the growing tension on the Korean peninsula, which she called an "extremely dangerous situation". The leaders of the US and North Korea - he added - "only simple humans who have control over the end of the world; nobody should have such power ".
.png)
24/10/2019 17:56
06/08/2020 10:04
