For the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
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letter
Hidankyo sent a letter to the President of the USA on July 27 2001.
The following is the text of the letter.
Mr. George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
July 27 2001
The Letter of Appeal
Dear Mr. President
We are survivors who have gone through hellish atrocities of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having learned from the experiences that nuclear weapons are those of absolute evil, brutalities and massacre of which have no parallel in the field of modern weaponry, we have been appealing to the world that this devilish weapon should be abolished immediately.
At the NPT Review Conference held in May last year, five nuclear powers including USA agreed to make an "unequivocal undertaking" to achieve a complete abolishment of one's own nuclear weapons, and the UN General Assembly last autumn reconfirmed this agreement. We highly appreciate these movements and have been watching closely your actions afterwards with a great expectation.
You are the only person who hold the crucial key to achieving this promise.
However, you and your staff have been repeating actions against this "unequivocal undertaking" of abolishment of nuclear weapons, by opposing US ratification of the CTBT, reviewing the ABM treaty and promoting the missile defense strategies. This attitude is a grave betrayal to mankind and conscience of the peace loving people of the world.
On behalf of hundreds of thousands of people killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and together with millions of nuclear weapons victims in the world, we hereby protest with great anger against your actions so far.
We sincerely hope that you will ratify the CTBT immediately, abandon the missile defense strategies and start to make concrete actions to abolish nuclear arsenals earlier than any other nuclear powers. We advise you to initiate multilateral negotiations to the earliest date of the 21st century.
We strongly appeal with great expectations that you would accept above mentioned wishes of ours with all your heart and soul.
Sunao Tsuboi Co-chairperson
Senji Yamaguchi Co-chairperson
Nori Tohei Co-chairperson