Hiroshima survivor urges Obama to visit site of world's first atomic bombing

Barack Obama should visit Hiroshima when Japan hosts the G7 leaders’ summit in May to see for himself the human misery inflicted by nuclear weapons, according to a survivor of the atomic bombing of the city 70 years ago. “I hope Obama and other G7 leaders come here and change their minds about possessing nuclear weapons,” said Keiko Ogura, who was an eight-year-old schoolgirl when the bomb flattened her hometown on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing 140,000 people. Obama, who this week made a historic visit to Cuba, spoke of his desire for a nuclear-free world during a speech in Prague in 2009, but has not been to Hiroshima on any of his three visits to Japan as president. Speculation that he will pay tribute to victims and survivors of the bombing, months before his time in office ends, rose on Wednesday after reports that the White House was looking into the possibility of arranging a visit, which would be the first by a sitting US president. Japanese media quoted Rose Gottemoeller, the US undersecretary for arms control, as telling reporters in Washington that the White House was “considering” an Obama trip to the city. The final decision on the timing and nature of any visit would be the president’s, Kyodo News quoted Gottemoeller as saying. Ogura, now 78, survived because her father, convinced something bad would happen, told her to skip school on the day of the attack. Their home was just outside the 2km radius from ground zero where most of the casualties and damage occurred. “President Obama should come here and see for himself,” she said. “He and other leaders would realise that nuclear weapons are not about making allies and enemies, but about joining hands and fighting this evil together. “We don’t want to tell world leaders what to think, or make them apologise. They should just view it as an opportunity to lead the world in the right direction, because only they have the power to do that.” G7 leaders will meet in Ise-Shima in central Japan in late May; early next month, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, will be among the foreign ministers meeting in Hiroshima. The mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, and Tomihisa Taue, his counterpart in Nagasaki, visited the US ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, in early 2014 to request Obama’s presence at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the attack later that year, but did not insist that he issue an apology. “That made me so angry,” said Yuki Tanaka, a retired professor at Hiroshima City University and an authority on the city’s history. “If the mayors are sincere about demanding that the US abolish nuclear weapons, they also have to make the US recognise that Hiroshima was a crime against humanity and demand an apology. You can’t separate one issue from the other.” Obama said during a visit to Japan in late 2009 that he would be “honoured” to go to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where 80,000 people died after it was bombed on 9 August 1945. “I certainly would be honoured – it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future,” Obama said. But a secret US cable released by WikiLeaks revealed that before Obama’s visit to the country, Japan had discouraged the White House from arranging for him to go to Hiroshima, acknowledging that a presidential apology for the attack was a “non-starter”. The cable, dated 3 September 2009 and sent to the then secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, quoted Japan’s then vice-foreign minister, Mitoji Yabunaka, as saying that both countries “should temper the public’s expectations” for a stop in Hiroshima. “While a simple visit to Hiroshima without fanfare is sufficiently symbolic to convey the right message, it is premature to include such program in the November visit,” Yabunaka was quoted as saying. The only western leader to have visited Hiroshima while in office is Kevin Rudd, who laid a wreath at the peace park cenotaph in 2008 when he was still Australian prime minister. Jimmy Carter visited the atomic bomb memorial in Hiroshima in 1984, after he had left office, but no sitting US president has ever visited the city. The highest-ranking US official to visit the site is Nancy Pelosi, the then House speaker, in 2008. Ambassador Kennedy attended the 70th anniversary commemorations last year. Tanaka believes the prospects for an Obama visit remain slim given the criticism that even a simple gesture, such as laying a wreath, at the cenotaph would generate at home, particularly in an election year. “It’s not impossible, but I doubt it,” Tanaka said, “for the simple reason that most Americans believe that the US was right to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and that it ended the war. “Part of the problem is that Japan is reluctant to apologise for its own wartime atrocities, which makes it more difficult to demand an apology from someone else.” Mayor Matsui would not be drawn on the prospects of a visit by Obama or Kerry to the Hiroshima peace park, whose cenotaph contains the names of every person to have died in connection to the bombing. But he said: “If they prayed before the cenotaph, they would be demonstrating a commitment [to abolishing nuclear weapons], and that would be good for us. “An Obama visit would certainly carry a lot of weight.” Thanks for reading.

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