HIROSHIMA: Progress on ridding the world of nuclear weapons, not an apology, is what Hiroshima would want from a visit by US President Barack Obama to the Japanese city hit by an American nuclear attack 71 years ago, survivors and other residents said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to the city recently that Obama wanted to travel there, though he did not know if the president’s schedule would allow him to when he visits Japan for a Group of Seven summit in May.
No incumbent US president has ever visited Hiroshima.
A presidential apology would be controversial in the United States, where a majority view the bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and of the city of Nagasaki three days later, as justified to end the war and save US lives.
The vast majority of Japanese think the bombings were unjustified.
“If the president is coming to see what really happened here and if that constitutes a step toward the abolition of nuclear arms in future, I don’t think we should demand an apology,” said Takeshi Masuda, a 91-year-old former school teacher.
“It has been really tough for those who lost family members. But if we demand an apology, that would make it impossible for him to come,” he told Reuters.
Masuda’s mother died a few weeks after being caught in the nuclear attack. At schools where he taught after World War Two, some students had been orphaned, others severely burnt.
A US warplane dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing thousands of people instantly and about 140,000 by the end of that year. Nagasaki was bombed on Aug. 9, 1945, and Japan surrendered six days later.
Miki Tsukishita, 75, remembers watching something shiny falling from the sky over Hiroshima that morning.
He ran back into his house shouting: “The sun is falling down.” That shielded him from direct exposure to the blast, heat and radiation.
Tsukishita was among those who placed an advertisement in the Washington Post in 1983 urging then-President Ronald Reagan to visit Hiroshima.
Tsukishita wants Obama, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in part for his push for nuclear disarmament, to use his influence to persuade leaders of other nuclear-armed countries to visit Hiroshima too, so they understand the inhumanity of atomic weapons.
“What really matters is not repeating the tragedy. I want him to say to other nuclear states ‘I’ve come to Hiroshima, so should you’,” he said.
Hiroshi Harada, a former head of the atomic bomb museum Kerry visited this week, was six when the bomb was dropped.
“At that moment, we saw people burned black, having their skin melted or limbs blown apart. It is unlikely that survivors would be in a cheery, welcoming mood,” Harada said.
“But President Obama would be making a very delicate political decision to come to Hiroshima. I would want to accept his visit with hopes that it will lead to the next action (for the abolition of nuclear arms).”
Hiroshima survivors look to Obama visit for disarmament, not apology
Hiroshima survivors look to Obama visit for disarmament, not apology
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
