About Hidankyo
Monthly Paper "Hidankyo" - March,1998
Ishikawa Prefectural Assembly adopted "Ishikawa Non-nuclear Declaration"
Ishikawa Prefectural Assembly adopted "Ishikawa Non-nuclear Declaration" with one consent. Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan, has become the twenty-ninth non-nuclear declaration prefecture of forty-seven in Japan.
This declaration was brought by the petition of wide range of organizations and individuals such as local Hidankyo, co-op and youth association. Every petitioner welcomed the declaration "hopes the abolition of nuclear weapons and eternal peace with citizens in Ishikawa" and expects that the administration will carry out along with the principle of non-nuclear and peace in the declaration.
100,000 people visited the exhibit "The A-Bomb and Humanity"
Hidankyo produced photo panel set "The A-Bomb and Humanity" has been exhibited at various places in Japan.
As of February 25, 368 sets were sent from Hokkaido, the northern island to Okinawa, the southern island of Japan. According to reports, the exhibitions were held at 300 places in all and about 100,000 people visited those exhibitions.This means that "The A-Bomb and Humanity" has been widely accepted as grass-roots movement.
Hidankyo expects more reports for exhibits will be heard.
Public opinion prevented military attack
It was a great relief that the Persian Gulf region maintained the peace because Iraq was entirely accepted the UN inspection of weapons of mass destruction.
in connection with the UN inspection issue the US government prepared to launech military attack without agreement of UNSC and stated "Military attack would be the only solution" and "(the US) would not eliminate the use of nuclear weapons". Many news papers predicted that air strikes would be operated wider areas than the 1991 Gulf War.
In the urgent circumstance, Hidankyo sent a letter against the threat of nuclear attack for Iraq to President Clinton. In the letter, Hidankyo stated "You have created the extremely dangerous circumstance around the Gulf reion and threatened with nuclear weapons to Iraq as well as the rest of the world. It is precisely the case that the threat of use of nuclear weapons generally constitutes violation of international law, the ICJ(International Court of Justice) confirmed. It is an unacceptable criminal act", then demanded to abandon the threat of use of nuclear weapons to Iraq without delay and withdraw all ships with nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf. Local Hidankyos also sent letters against the US strategy.
Public opinions over the world against the military attack prevented the US strategy.
However, we have to denounce that the Japanese government even agreed the US strategy including nuclear attack in terms of sharing the US point of view.