Nagasaki survivors criticise Shinzo Abe’s military push

Survivors of Nagasaki's nuclear destruction have attacked Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe for trying to expand the role of the nation's military forces.

Elderly hibakusha (survivors) were among thousands of people who gathered in Nagasaki Peace Park on Sunday morning to mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, which took at least 70,000 lives in August 1945.

Tens of thousands more subsequently died from burns and radiation-induced illnesses.

The twin anniversaries of Nagasaki and Hiroshima this week come as Japan’s parliament debates legislation that critics say will hollow out the nation’s pacifist constitution, written a year after the war ended.

"The security Bills that the government is trying to push through would jeopardise our long-time movement for nuclear abolition and the hopes of hibakusha," said Sumiteru Taniguchi (86), to loud applause from the crowd. "We cannot allow this," he said, looking directly at Mr Abe.

Nagasaki's mayor, Tomihisa Taue, also said the legislation was causing "worries and anxieties" that Japan's 70-year-old pledge to not wage war was now being "undermined" by the government. "The Diet (parliament) and the government should listen to these concerns and sincerely discuss them," said the mayor.

Row

An uncomfortable-looking Mr Abe sat throughout both speeches staring straight ahead. The prime minister angered A-bomb survivors on Thursday when he appeared to drop a long-standing pledge to keep

Japan

nuclear weapon-free during his speech in Hiroshima.

Earlier in the week, defence minister Gen Nakatani also triggered a row when he admitted that the security legislation might allow Japan to transport nuclear weapons for an ally, though he added that the country’s non-nuclear principles ruled that out.

In his Nagasaki speech, Mr Abe insisted there was no change to the three principles: not to possess, produce or allow nuclear arms into the country.

"As the only nation in the world to have suffered a war-time nuclear attack, I have renewed my resolve to play a leading role in pursuing a world without nuclear weapons," he said. The hibakusha criticism, broadcast on national television, will embarrass the prime minister as he pursues his long-cherished aim to loosen the bonds of the pacifist constitution.

Survivors of the nuclear bombings, now mostly elderly and frail, still carry enormous moral weight, though they are unlikely to stop the security Bills, which are expected to pass both houses by the end of the summer.

The government wants the Self-Defence Forces toplay a more muscular role in the US-Japan security alliance. Mr Abe says Japan must take more responsibility for its own defence and has repeatedly insisted it will not fight America’s proxy wars. But popular opposition is running high – hundreds of thousands of people have protested outside the Diet in Tokyo over the last month.

“Whatever he says, Mr Abe is setting Japan back on the road to wage war,” says Shoji Sawada, a Hiroshima survivor who lost his mother to the bomb. “Mr Taniguchi spoke for us all.”