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As 50,000 people marked the 68^th  anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the mayor of the city used his speech at the somber annual ceremony to criticize Tokyo‘s plans to both restart the country’s nuclear reactors and export the technology. A peace bell was struck at 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday, the moment the ‘Little Boy’ bomb was dropped on Hiroshima from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress on Aug. 6, 1945. ……

Hiroshima’s mayor is critical

In the traditional peace declaration speech delivered every year by the mayor of Hiroshima, however, Mayor Kazumi Matsui rebuked the Abe administration over its intention to sell Japanese nuclear power technology to India, one of four countries that have not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferationof Nuclear Weapons.

“The government’s ongoing negotiations may bring economic benefits to Japan and India, but they will hamper efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons,” said Mr. Matsui.

The mayor went on to criticize the Abe administration’s plans to examine the restarting of Japan’s nuclear reactors, almost all of which have been taken offline since the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. Approximately 100,000 people remain displaced by the disaster, and the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, recently admitted that huge quantities of radioactive materials have been leaking continuously into the ocean since accident occurred.

“The people of Hiroshima know well the ordeal of recovery,” Matsui said. “We urge the national government to rapidly develop and implement a responsible energy policy that places top priority on safety and the livelihoods of the people.”

Memories fading

The politicians’ remarks come, however, come as the history of the bombing of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, feels increasingly remote to many Japanese. Japan still has more than 200,000 hibakusha, as the survivors of the atomic bombings are known, but their average age is almost 79; some worry that memories of the horrors of war may be fading with them.

Seven decades after World War II, the government is considering revisions to Japan’s pacifist Constitution, Article 9 of which states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/0806/Hiroshima-marks-atom-bomb-anniversary-as-Japan-unveils-warship-video