Monthly paper "Hidankyo" November 2003
Against "Restoration of the Enola Gay",
petition began.
@@@@Hidankyo has sent a letter of request to the US president George
Bush and the director of the Smithonian Air and Space Museum, John
Dailey, concerning the exhibit of a restoration of the Enola Gay.
Petition was also begun to gather support to this request. The
petition is collected both in US and Japan, and it will be submitted by
Japanese A-bomb victims at the exhibit opening planned in December.
The Smithonian Air and Space Museum in Washington
D.C. is "the most visited museum in the world". The exhibit of the
restoration of the Enola Gay will be open to the general public at the
new pavilion near the Dulles Airport on December 15th.
The explanatory text for the public display devotes
a great deal to the performance characteristics and the like of the
Enola Gay, but is said to restrict itself to a brief reference to the
dropping of the atomic bomb: "Dropped the first atomic weapon on
Hiroshima in 1945." Moreover, we have heard that Director Dailey
has explained: "This is a museum of technology, and we have focused on
the technological achievement."
The museum attempted a special exhibition on the
Enola Gay in 1995. Then, the museum planned to display the impacts
of the atomic bomb based on its statement that the bombing was a right
action taken. Nevertheless, the exhibit was cancelled by a strong
opposition from the American Air Force Association.
In the letter of request, Hidankyo states that "from
the perspective of those who are aware of this background, the fact that
you are on this occasion conducting an exhibition of the Enola Gay on
the pretext of focusing on etechnological achievement,f with concealment
of the ecalamity of the bombing,f can only be considered to signify
that your museum has adopted the position that ethe dropping of the
atomic bomb was rightf." Furthermore, Hidankyo claims that "a
testimony to etechnological achievementf is completely unacceptable to
the atomic bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
The petition for the request to the president Bush
and the director Daily already started in Japan. With the
cooperation of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee in Washington
D.C., the petition has been translated in English and began collecting
signatures at a public gathering of 100,000 people in Washington on
October 25th.
Demonstration for the request will be held with the
participation of the A-bomb survivors at the public opening of the
exhibit in December. The petitions collected throughout Japan will
be gathered by Hidankyo and passed onto the A-bomb survivors
participating in the demonstration at the museum.
All sorts of bomb-victim associations and groups in
Japan have expressed their opposition to the announcement of the exhibit
made in August, and they sent in request letters to the president
Bush. The request letters addressed to the museum director, as
well as their petitions, will be delivered by the victim participants
who are flying to US for the demonstration.
Bushfs
visit to Japan brought demonstrations at embassies and on the street
On October 17th, Hidankyo and Toyukai (Tokyo
Federation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) requested of the president
Bush, who was visiting Japan, to go visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to
personally witness the truth of the damages brought by the A-bomb
bombings.
The demonstration for the request took place in
front of the American Embassy in Tokyo. Participating bomb victims
publicly asked for an apology for the bombing as well as the
cancellation of the development of nuclear weapons and also called for
disarmament of nuclear weapons.
The demonstration was continued at Shibuya
Station. The demonstration also collected petitions for the
request letter written for the Enola Gay exhibit upcoming in
December. There were two demonstrators, one with a mask of the
president Bush and another in a mask of the prime minister Koizumi, to
express Bush with his full intent to use nuclear weapon and develop it
further and Koizumi with his favour to Bushfs intent.
There were young participants from other groups at
Shibuya, collecting signatures from the same generation.
At Shibuya, there were foreigners who paid attention
to the demonstration and stopped to look at the displays from the "The
A-bomb and Humanity" photo panels.
40 people, including the bomb victims from the
greater Tokyo area participated in the demonstration. 28 petitions
were collected in total.
Top Page Back number