Scene from the Hiroshima ceremony
The first-time attendance of a delegate from the United States to ceremonies commemorating for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan has been used to push for a world free of nuclear weapons.
American Ambassador John Roos joined representatives from 74 other nations at the ceremony.
A moment of silence was held at 08:15, the exact time the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945 that killed 140,000 people. Offerings of water were given to the dead.
Roos said in a statement that he wanted to use the ceremony to push for a nuclear-free world, which is top of the international agenda of US President Barack Obama.
Ambassador Roos attending the Hiroshima ceremony
“For the sake of future generations, we must continue to work together to realize a world without nuclear weapons,” Roos said.
Hiroshima mayor Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba welcomed the American Ambassador’s attendance and agreed with the idea of eliminating nuclear weapons from the world, reports The UK Guardian.
“We need to communicate to every corner of the globe the intense yearning of the survivors for the abolition of nuclear weapons,” Akiba said when addressing the 55,000-strong crowd at the ceremony. “I offer my prayers to those who died. We will not make you wait for much longer [for nuclear disarmament].”
Akiba called on the Japanese government in his speech to take a leadership role in nuclear disarmament toward “turning a new page in human history.”
“I offer my prayers to those who died – we will not make you be patient much longer,” he said.
That point was pushed further by UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon, who said that the time had come to move from “Ground Zero to Global Zero,” meaning a world without nuclear weapons.
Ambassador Roos’ attendance has led some to speculate that Obama will visit Hiroshima when he visits Japan, a first for an American president.
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When will the Japs come to a memorial ceremony for the Bataan Death March where 15,000 Americans were slaughtered?
Ban-Ki-Moon has failed to state that the Japs invaded Korea in 1910, renaming it Chosen and conscripting 200,000 Korean girls and women as sexual slaves for the Jap military, euphemistically namimg them "comfort women". I wonder why?
Just another stop on OBUMMER’S APOLOGY TOUR! I have yet to receive an apology for the family friend lost at Pearl Harbor or the distant cousin tortured to death on THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH. I think I will sit this trip out.
@NIM: If you see my 2 posts here, I haven't let the Japs off the hook for one second.
Eileen…WTF? Most presidents have visited Japan. Get over your hate. I lost relatives too. I don’t blame Obama for visiting or the present Japanese government for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Perhaps we should BOMB ENGLAND! THOSE JERKS KILL AMERICANS DURING THE REVOLUTION!
Yes, and we can all gather in one giant Cuddle Party and hold each other to make ourselves feel better…before they launch.
Gee, everyone in the world conveniently overlooks all the genocidal war crimes the Japs did during WWII, yet we’re to “never forget” the Holocaust.
I wonder why…..
the japanese killed raped, tortured over 60 million people and showed no signs of stopping!!!!!!!
thank u Enola Gay & Bocks Cars!
Shouldn't the Japanese have thought about the repercussions of their attacks on the USA?
We've got a saying in Africa – if you want to piss with the big dogs, you should be able to lift your leg up high…
@kiadragon: Get over it? I can. If the Japanese or present day Japanese governments admit what they did and ask for forgiveness. They never have to my satisfaction. They push Hiroshima and Nagasaki in everybodies faces but have never taken stock of the beheadings of American prisoners of war and the human experiments they performed on American and British POW’s. I can forgive easily. I have been to Japan twice in the mid 70′s and had no trouble. Nevertheless, to forgive takes two. What the Japanese did during WWII has been deleted from textbooks and has to be gotten in English from the internet. Americans have admitted My Lai. Germans have admitted Lidice and Oradour-sur-glane and Babi-yar. Russians have admitted the Katyn Forest massacre. Japs!! Time to fess up. Then I can forgive you..
The big shame about US actions in WWII is that we were on the wrong side.
That's a big one, isn't it?
Oh, by the way, there was no Rape of Nanking. Frank Capra used file footage and reenactments to create that installment of Why We Fight, and the Nationalist Chinese did something similar with their book of photos. If you do a search on Youtube you can find some of this information. Search for Fake of Nanking.