New Mexico Mercury

Last week, I returned to Los Alamos, New Mexico, scene of our greatest crime, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, where preparations continue for bigger and better nuclear weapons. Even as the government is shut down and New Mexico has just been ranked worst in the nation for the well being of children, plutonium bomb making carries on at Los Alamos.

This time, I accompanied a delegation of 13 elderly Japanese peace activists from Hiroshima, Japan. Several of them were survivors and witnesses of the U.S. atomic bombing sixty eight years ago. They’re known as Hibakusha, a Japanese word that refers to all surviving victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It translates as “explosion-affected people.”

It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

The delegation was organized by the World Friendship Center out of Hiroshima (www.wfchiroshima.net). Their motto is “to foster peace, one friend at a time.” Several retired directors, based in Oregon, hosted them in Seattle and Portland for two weeks, before bringing them to New Mexico, where they spoke in six elementary and high schools and to classes at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

In Santa Fe, Pax Christi hosted a potluck dinner in a church hall where they introduced themselves and several of us spoke of our work for disarmament. Among those I met with was Soh Horie, 73, who was five when the bomb went off. He and his sister were walking on a nearby hill, on their way to school, and blown off their feet. If they had left for school a little earlier, he told me, they would have died. Soh has been a peace activist all his life.

Delegation members gave out copies of the recent Hiroshima day message by Matsui Kazumi, the Mayor of Hiroshima.

“Indiscriminately stealing the lives of innocent people, permanently altering the lives of survivors, and stalking their minds and bodies to the end of their days, the atomic bomb is the ultimate inhumane weapon and an absolute evil,” the mayor wrote on August 6, 2013. “The Hibakusha, who know the hell of an atomic bombing, have continuously fought that evil.”

During the potluck, I sat next to 82 year old Kono Kyomi. Her daughter sat beside her. Over dinner, Kono Koyomi told me her story. She was fourteen when the U.S. dropped the bomb on her city. She and her mother survived but their house on the edge of the city was badly destroyed. The next day, 24 hours later, the two of them walked into the center of the city, right through all the smoking remains, in search of her two sisters. They walked for days through the ruins. Eventually, they learned that her sisters were not in the city center at the time, and survived the blast.

But Kono Kyomi, at age 14, saw everything—including hundreds of people in the process of dying a horrific death.

“They were all dying,” she said, “and there was no medicine, and there was nothing we could do.” She looked me in the eye.

“I’m so sorry for what our country did, and like you, I will do everything I can to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons,” I said.

“Be sure to speak to young people,” she continued. “We need to tell them the stories, to tell them about these weapons, and to educate them to work to get rid of them. That’s the most important thing we can do for the future.”

“Even as their average age surpasses 78, the Hibakusha continue to communicate their longing for peace,” Mayor Kazumi continues. “They still hope the people of the world will come to share that longing and choose the right path. In response to this desire of the many Hibakusha who have transcended such terrible pain and sorrow, the rest of us must become the force that drives the struggle to abolish nuclear weapons.”

Jay Coghlan, director of www.nukewatch.org spoke at the pot luck about the ongoing work of the Los Alamos Labs, which are dead set on creating new “smart” nukes. Bud Ryan of Pax Christi spoke about his film The Forgotten Bomb, and I told of our annual protests and prayer vigils.

Others in the delegation are adult children of Hibakusha, and carry on their parents’ witness by telling their stories. A few work for the Hiroshima peace memorial. One woman, Shoko, has lived her whole life in Fukushima, right next to the nuclear power plant which exploded after the 2011 tsunami and which is now leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean. She’s not allowed back to Fukushima, so she has resettled as a refugee to Hiroshima.

The morning after our dinner and sharing, we gathered in a Santa Fe park to lay flowers at a memorial that commemorates the 4,500 Japanese people who were interned there in our concentration camp--the “Dept. of Justice World War II Internment Camp,” it’s called.

Then, we all drove up the mountain to Los Alamos, where we gathered at Ashley Pond, site of the buildings where the Hiroshima bomb was built. We gathered under the small stone shelter on the edge of the pond for photos. The delegation brought with them 1000 peace “cranes,” the little birds made of folded color paper. We attached them to the wooden beams in the ceiling of the shelter, hoping that they might be safe there.

Afterwards, Joni Arends of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, (http://www.nuclearactive.org) pointed out in the distance the current Lab buildings where the plutonium cores for every nuclear bomb are made, and explained how the Labs continue to work non-stop to improve nuclear destruction.

“How long will you remain imprisoned by distrust and animosity?” Mayor Kazumi continued in his August statement. “Do you honestly believe you can continue to maintain national security by rattling your sabers? Please come to Hiroshima. Encounter the spirit of the Hibakusha. Look squarely at the future of the human family without being trapped in the past, and make the decision to shift to a system of security based on trust and dialogue.”

It was moving and disturbing to welcome these suffering servants of peace to the birthplace of the atomic bomb, and to explain how the Labs continue to prepare to vaporize people. But it was also hopeful, because our gathering brimmed with forgiveness, reconciliation, love and peace. The Hibakusha were living boddhisatvas of peace and nonviolence. Spending time with them was a fulfillment of Jesus’ commandment “love our enemies.” They loved us, and show us how to make peace.

The Mayor’s closing words summed up our feelings. “Recalling once again the trials of our predecessors through these 68 years, we offer heartfelt consolation to the souls of the atomic bomb victims by pledging to do everything in our power to eliminate the absolute evil of nuclear weapons and achieve a peaceful world.” Amen.