Saturday, October 12, 2024 - The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its efforts “to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”
In 1956, local Hibakusha associations, along with victims of
nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, formed the Japan Confederation of A- and
H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations. This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon
Hidankyo.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the group “for
demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used
again.”
Nihon Hidankyo, also known as Hibakusha, was formed by
witnesses to the only two nuclear bombs ever to be used in war in the history
of the world.
The survivors have dedicated their lives to trying to rid
the world of nuclear weapons.
“The Hibakusha help us to
describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the
incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee
said, announcing its decision in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on Friday.
Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI), told CNN he was “delighted” that the Hibakusha had
been awarded this year’s prize.
“As the Soviet and US leaders
Gorbachev and Reagan said in 1985, nuclear war can never be won and must never
be fought. The Hibakusha remind us of that every day,” Smith said.
“The bomb on Nagasaki was the
second time a nuclear weapon was used in war: Let it be the last!”
Around 80,000 people died instantly when the United States
dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima while hundreds of thousands died later
from Cancer.
Japanese Prime Minister
Shigeru Ishiba praised the committee’s decision. “It is extremely meaningful
that the prize will be awarded to an organization that has worked for the
abolition of nuclear weapons for many years,” he said Friday during a visit to Laos.
Friday’s prize is the 105th to be awarded since 1901. Nihon
Hidankyo, the 141st laureate, will receive a cash award of around $1 million.
The committee said its decision is “securely anchored” in
Alfred Nobel’s will, which outlines three criteria for awarding the prize: “the
best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of
standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Although the will was written before the creation of nuclear
weapons, the Nobel Peace Prize has previously been awarded to individuals and
groups involved in nuclear disarmament.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won
the award in 2017. In 1995, it was awarded to Pugwash Conferences on Science
and World Affairs and the physicist Joseph Rotblat – the only scientist to walk
away from the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory on moral grounds.
The committee also lauded Nihon Hidankyo for helping to
maintain the nuclear taboo, which it said was “a precondition of a peaceful
future for humanity.” It said the decision highlighted an encouraging fact that
no nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years.
Announcing the prize, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the
committee, said: “The stories and testimonies of the Hibakusha are an important
reminder of how unacceptable the use of nuclear weapons .”
In this year’s annual assessment on the state of armaments,
SIPRI reported that the nine nuclear-armed states – the US, Russia, the United
Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – “continued to
modernize their nuclear arsenals and several deployed new nuclear-armed or
nuclear-capable weapon systems in 2023.”
As of January 2024, SIPRI estimates there are 12,121 nuclear
warheads across the globe, about 9,585 of which are in military stockpiles for
potential use.
“While the global total of
nuclear warheads continues to fall as Cold War-era weapons are gradually
dismantled, regrettably we continue to see year-on-year increases in the number
of operational nuclear warheads,” Smith said. “This trend seems likely to continue
and probably accelerate in the coming years and is extremely concerning.”
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