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Nobel Peace Prize for Japanese atomic bomb survivors ‘fitting’ amid global tensions

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The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, speaks during an interview with Reuters on the following day of Nihon Hidankyo winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima Oct. 12, 2024. (OSV News photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters)

The naming of a Japanese atomic bomb survivors group as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient is “fitting … during this time of heightened geopolitical tension,” said Archbishop John C Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who has travelled to Japan on several peace pilgrimages and also released a 2022 pastoral letter on nuclear disarmament.

On 11 October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced it had selected the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo for the award, which was established (along with several other prizes) by Swedish scientist and industrialist Alfred Nobel in his will to honour “the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Since its first conferral in 1901, some five years after Nobel’s death, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 105 times to 142 laureates, representing 111 individuals and 31 organisations.

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Nihon Hidankyo, founded in 1956, is the largest organisation of Japanese hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The historic attacks were launched by the US on 6 and 9 August 1945, in an effort to force the unconditional surrender of Japan and hasten the end of the Second World War. An estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people were killed directly, although the true number of casualties is “probably fundamentally unknowable,” according to nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein.

Following the bombings, the hibakusha (“bomb-affected people” in Japanese) suffered from the varied effects of radiation sickness, as well as the loss of their loved ones and even discrimination within Japanese society, as their injuries were mistakenly perceived as signs of infectious disease.

Atomic bomb survivors and members of Nihon Hidankyo, a country-wide organization of atomic and hydrogen bomb sufferers, including Nihon Hidankyo Assistant Secretary General Toshiko Hamanaka, Co-chairperson Terumi Tanaka, Assistant Secretary General Masako Wada, Assistant Secretary General Jiro Hamasumi attend a press conference on the following day of the group winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Tokyo Oct. 12, 2024. (OSV News photo/Issei Kato, Reuters)

“The survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings continue to put a human face on the tragedy of war and, specifically, the tragedy and immorality of nuclear weapons, which have increased in number and lethal force as we witness a second nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first,” Archbishop Wester said in a 14 October statement.

Archbishop Wester—who in January 2022 released the pastoral letter “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament“—said in his 14 October statement that the “well-deserved recognition” of Nihon Hidankyo by the Nobel committee was a wake-up call to humanity.

“I pray this well-deserved recognition by the Nobel Foundation will amplify the voices of the hibakusha, whose numbers are diminishing as we are about to mark the 80th anniversary of the Japan atomic bombings,” he said.

“I hope this Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo will get the attention of the nuclear states who have yet to sign the (United Nations) Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Now, that would be a real prize for the Hibakusha and for all of us!”

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