55th Anniversary of
Hiroshima:
The People Are Decisive Factor in
Complete Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
At 8.15 am on August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was
dropped on Hiroshima, detonating 1,885 feet above the ground. The initial death
toll was nearly 100,000. By 1986, the cenotaph in Hiroshima listed about
140,000 people who died in the attack, including those who died later from
injuries and the horrible effects of radiation. The toll represented some 40
percent of the city's population. The number of names on the cenotaph at the
55th anniversary now stands at 217,137.
Only three days later, the United States dropped a second
atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The final death toll in that city was up to 70,000
people.
Japan agreed to surrender on August 15, a week after the
Soviet Union had itself entered the war on Japan and driven 700,000 Japanese
troops out of Manchuria.
Fifty-five years after the first use of nuclear weapons in
warfare, these weapons of mass destruction have still not been banned, as is
the demand of the world's people. Rather, the big powers, led by US
imperialism, have used their monopoly of these weapons as a form of blackmail
against other countries and the world's people, to get them to do their
bidding. At the same time, they have used the pretext of the possession of
"weapons of mass destruction" to keep in place the genocidal
sanctions against Iraq. They have used the pretext of the alleged development
of nuclear weapons by "rogue states" to blockade the DPRK and
increase tension on the Korean Peninsula, while now beginning a new arms race,
the "National Missile Defence" system.
It must be understood that the big powers have never been
interested in the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons. The Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has been used not to bring about the banning of nuclear
weapons and their testing, but to preserve the nuclear monopoly in their hands.
It is a means for keeping the control of nuclear weapons in the hands of US
imperialism and the big powers, while making it unlawful for the rest of the
world to follow suit.
The demand of the world's people for the complete
prohibition of nuclear weapons, as well as beginning from the demand that the
imperialists end their nuclear monopoly and blackmail, must rely on their own
anti-imperialist struggle as the decisive factor in guaranteeing peace and
security. The entire history of the 20th century has proved that it is not the
manoeuvrings and armed might of the imperialists which have contributed to the
world's peace and security. The opposite is the case. It is the struggles of
the people which have stayed the hands of the imperialists and won liberation
and security, and which defeated fascism in the second world war.
It is only the struggles of the people, and ultimately the
overthrow of imperialism itself, which will lead to the complete prohibition of
nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.
