被爆69年の夏。灼(や)けつく日差しは「あの日」に記憶の時間(とき)を引き戻します。1945年8月6日。一発の原爆により焦土と化した広島では、幼子(おさなご)からお年寄りまで一日で何万という罪なき市民の命が絶たれ、その年のうちに14万人が亡くなりました。尊い犠牲を忘れず、惨禍を繰り返さないために被爆者の声を聞いてください。
建物疎開作業で被爆し亡くなった少年少女は約6,000人。当時12歳の中学生は、「今も戦争、原爆の傷跡は私の心と体に残っています。同級生のほとんどが即死。生きたくても生きられなかった同級生を思い、自分だけが生き残った申し訳なさで張り裂けそうになります。」と語ります。辛うじて生き延びた被爆者も、今なお深刻な心身の傷に苦しんでいます。
「水を下さい。」瀕死の声が脳裏から消えないという当時15歳の中学生。建物疎開作業で被爆し、顔は焼けただれ、大きく腫れ上がり、眉毛(まゆげ)や睫毛(まつげ)は焼け、制服は熱線でぼろぼろとなった下級生の懇願に、「重傷者に水をやると死ぬぞ。」と止められ、「耳をふさぐ思いで水を飲ませなかったのです。死ぬと分かっていれば存分に飲ませてあげられたのに。」と悔やみ続けています。
あまりにも凄絶(せいぜつ)な体験ゆえに過去を多く語らなかった人々が、年老いた今、少しずつ話し始めています。「本当の戦争の残酷な姿を知ってほしい。」と訴える原爆孤児は、廃墟の街で、橋の下、ビルの焼け跡の隅、防空壕などで着の身着のままで暮らし、食べるために盗みと喧嘩を繰り返し、教育も受けられずヤクザな人々のもとで辛うじて食いつなぐ日々を過ごした子どもたちの暮らしを語ります。
また、被爆直後、生死の境をさまよい、その後も放射線による健康不安で苦悩した当時6歳の国民学校1年生は「若い人に将来二度と同じ体験をしてほしくない。」との思いから訴えます。海外の戦争犠牲者との交流を通じて感じた「若い人たちが世界に友人を作ること」「戦争文化ではなく、平和文化を作っていく努力を怠らないこと」の大切さを。
子どもたちから温かい家族の愛情や未来の夢を奪い、人生を大きく歪めた「絶対悪」をこの世からなくすためには、脅し脅され、殺し殺され、憎しみの連鎖を生み出す武力ではなく、国籍や人種、宗教などの違いを超え、人と人との繋がりを大切に、未来志向の対話ができる世界を築かなければなりません。
ヒロシマは、世界中の誰もがこのような被爆者の思いを受け止めて、核兵器廃絶と世界平和実現への道を共に歩むことを願っています。
人類の未来を決めるのは皆さん一人一人です。「あの日」の凄惨(せいさん)を極めた地獄や被爆者の人生を、もしも自分や家族の身に起きたらと、皆さん自身のこととして考えてみてください。ヒロシマ・ナガサキの悲劇を三度繰り返さないために、そして、核兵器もない、戦争もない平和な世界を築くために被爆者と共に伝え、考え、行動しましょう。
私たちも力を尽くします。加盟都市が6,200を超えた平和首長会議では世界各地に設けるリーダー都市を中心に国連やNGOなどと連携し、被爆の実相とヒロシマの願いを世界に拡げます。そして、現在の核兵器の非人道性に焦点を当て非合法化を求める動きを着実に進め、2020年までの核兵器廃絶を目指し核兵器禁止条約の交渉開始を求める国際世論を拡大します。
今年4月、NPDI（軍縮・不拡散イニシアティブ）広島外相会合は「広島宣言」で世界の為政者に広島・長崎訪問を呼び掛けました。その声に応え、オバマ大統領をはじめ核保有国の為政者の皆さんは、早期に被爆地を訪れ、自ら被爆の実相を確かめてください。そうすれば、必ず、核兵器は決して存在してはならない「絶対悪」であると確信できます。その「絶対悪」による非人道的な脅しで国を守ることを止め、信頼と対話による新たな安全保障の仕組みづくりに全力で取り組んでください。
唯一の被爆国である日本政府は、我が国を取り巻く安全保障環境が厳しさを増している今こそ、日本国憲法の崇高な平和主義のもとで69年間戦争をしなかった事実を重く受け止める必要があります。そして、今後も名実ともに平和国家の道を歩み続け、各国政府と共に新たな安全保障体制の構築に貢献するとともに、来年のNPT再検討会議に向け、核保有国と非核保有国の橋渡し役としてNPT体制を強化する役割を果たしてください。また、被爆者をはじめ放射線の影響に苦しみ続けている全ての人々に、これまで以上に寄り添い、温かい支援策を充実させるとともに、「黒い雨降雨地域」を拡大するよう求めます。
今日ここに、原爆犠牲者の御霊に心から哀悼の誠を捧げるとともに、「絶対悪」である核兵器の廃絶と世界恒久平和の実現に向け、世界の人々と共に力を尽くすことを誓います。
平成26年（2014年）8月6日
広島市長 松井 一實
PEACE DECLARATION
Summer, 69 years later. The burning sun takes us back to “that day.” August 6, 1945. A single atomic bomb renders Hiroshima a burnt plain. From infants to the elderly, tens of thousands of innocent civilians lose their lives in a single day. By the end of the year, 140,000 have died. To avoid forgetting that sacred sacrifice and to prevent a repetition of that tragedy, please listen to the voices of the survivors.
Approximately 6,000 young boys and girls died removing buildings for fire lanes. One who was a 12-year-old junior high student at the time says, “Even now, I carry the scars of war and that atomic bombing on my body and in my heart. Nearly all my classmates were killed instantly. My heart is tortured by guilt when I think how badly they wanted to live and that I was the only one who did.” Having somehow survived, hibakusha still suffer from severe physical and emotional wounds.
“Water, please.” Voices from the brink of death are still lodged in the memory of a boy who was 15 and a junior high student. The pleas were from younger students who had been demolishing buildings. Seeing their badly burned, grotesquely swollen faces, eyebrows and eyelashes singed off, school uniforms in ragged tatters due to the heat ray, he tried to respond but was stopped. “‘Give water when they’re injured that bad and they’ll die, boy,’ so I closed my ears and refused them water. If I had known they were going to die anyway, I would have given them all the water they wanted.” Profound regret persists.
People who rarely talked about the past because of their ghastly experiences are now, in old age, starting to open up. “I want people to know the true cruelty of war,” says an A-bomb orphan. He tells of children like himself living in a city of ashes, sleeping under bridges, in the corners of burned-out buildings, in bomb shelters, having nothing more than the clothes on their backs, stealing and fighting to eat, not going to school, barely surviving day to day working for gangsters.
Immediately after the bombing, a 6-year-old first grader hovered on the border between life and death. Later, she lived a continual fearful struggle with radiation aftereffects. She speaks out now because, “I don’t want any young people to go through that experience.” After an exchange with non-Japanese war victims, she decided to convey the importance of “young people making friends around the world,” and “unceasing efforts to build, not a culture of war, but a culture of peace.”
The “absolute evil” that robbed children of loving families and dreams for the future, plunging their lives into turmoil, is not susceptible to threats and counter-threats, killing and being killed. Military force just gives rise to new cycles of hatred. To eliminate the evil, we must transcend nationality, race, religion, and other differences, value person-to-person relationships, and build a world that allows forward-looking dialogue.
Hiroshima asks everyone throughout the world to accept this wish of the hibakusha and walk with them the path to nuclear weapons abolition and world peace.
Each one of us will help determine the future of the human family. Please put yourself in the place of the hibakusha. Imagine their experiences, including that day from the depths of hell, actually happening to you or someone in your family. To make sure the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happen a third time, let’s all communicate, think and act together with the hibakusha for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons and without war.
We will do our best. Mayors for Peace, now with over 6,200 member cities, will work through lead cities representing us in their parts of the world and in conjunction with NGOs and the UN to disseminate the facts of the bombings and the message of Hiroshima. We will steadfastly promote the new movement stressing the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and seeking to outlaw them. We will help strengthen international public demand for the start of negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention with the goal of total abolition by 2020.
The Hiroshima Statement that emerged this past April from the ministerial meeting of the NPDI (Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative) called on the world’s policymakers to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. President Obama and all leaders of nuclear-armed nations, please respond to that call by visiting the A-bombed cities as soon as possible to see what happened with your own eyes. If you do, you will be convinced that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil that must no longer be allowed to exist. Please stop using the inhumane threat of this absolute evil to defend your countries. Rather, apply all your resources to a new security system based on trust and dialogue.
Japan is the only A-bombed nation. Precisely because our security situation is increasingly severe, our government should accept the full weight of the fact that we have avoided war for 69 years thanks to the noble pacifism of the Japanese Constitution. We must continue as a nation of peace in both word and deed, working with other countries toward the new security system. Looking toward next year’s NPT Review Conference, Japan should bridge the gap between the nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states to strengthen the NPT regime. In addition, I ask the government to expand the “black rain areas” and, by providing more caring assistance, show more compassion for the hibakusha and all those suffering from the effects of radiation.
Here and now, as we offer our heartfelt consolation to the souls of those sacrificed to the atomic bomb, we pledge to join forces with people the world over seeking the abolition of the absolute evil, nuclear weapons, and the realization of lasting world peace.
August 6, 2014
MATSUI Kazumi
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima
