UNITED NATIONS, Oct 11 (IPS) – The United Nations Secretary Basic António Guterres congratulated grassroots Japanese group Nihon Hidankyo on being awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.
“The atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, often known as the hibakusha, are selfless, soul-bearing witnesses of the horrific human price of nuclear weapons,” he stated in a press release.
“Whereas their numbers develop smaller every year, the relentless work and resilience of the hibakusha are the spine of the worldwide nuclear disarmament motion.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2024 Peace Prize for “its efforts to attain a world freed from nuclear weapons and for demonstrating via witness testimony that nuclear weapons must not ever be used once more.”
The committee stated the worldwide motion arose in response to the atom bomb assaults of August 1945.
“The testimony of the Hibakusha—the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—is exclusive on this bigger context. These historic witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons world wide by drawing on private tales, creating academic campaigns primarily based on their very own expertise, and issuing pressing warnings in opposition to the unfold and use of nuclear weapons. The Hibakusha assist us to explain the indescribable, to suppose the unthinkable, and to by some means grasp the incomprehensible ache and struggling attributable to nuclear weapons.”
It singled out Nihon Hidankyo, who reportedly cried following the announcement and different representatives of the Hibakusha to have contributed significantly to the institution of the “nuclear taboo.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee acknowledged one encouraging reality: “No nuclear weapon has been utilized in battle in practically 80 years.”
The award comes because the world prepares to mark 80 years since two American atomic bombs killed an estimated 120 000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A comparable quantity died of burn and radiation accidents within the months and years that adopted.
“Right this moment’s nuclear weapons have far larger harmful energy. They’ll kill tens of millions and would influence the local weather catastrophically. A nuclear battle might destroy our civilization,” the committee stated.
“The fates of those that survived the infernos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been lengthy hid and uncared for. In 1956, native Hibakusha associations together with victims of nuclear weapons assessments within the Pacific shaped the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Victims Organizations. This identify was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It will develop into the most important and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.”
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 fulfills Alfred Nobel’s need to acknowledge efforts of the best profit to humankind.
Guterres stated he would “always remember my many conferences with them through the years. Their haunting dwelling testimony reminds the world that the nuclear menace shouldn’t be confined to historical past books. Nuclear weapons stay a transparent and current hazard to humanity, as soon as once more showing within the day by day rhetoric of worldwide relations.”
He stated the one solution to eradicate the specter of nuclear weapons is to eradicate them altogether.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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