Protest letter against the US subcritical nuclear test (March 23, 2000)

March 23, 2000

The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton
The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
The United States of America

His Excellency Dr. Thomas Stephen Foley
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America
Embassy of the United States of America in Japan

Letter of Protest

The United States has conducted a tenth sub-critical nuclear test in its underground testing facility in Nevada. Just last month, US Ambassador Foley visited Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum and, after encountering the reality of the atomic bombing, wrote in the guest book: "A moving experience and a demonstration of the need for all nations to work for peace." I am disappointed to learn, one month later, that the US has conducted another test, and I am outraged by your evident determination to cling indefinitely to nuclear weapons. On behalf of the people of Hiroshima, I vehemently protest.

The Conference of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, scheduled to begin next month, will have a tremendous impact on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts as we enter the next century. All nuclear-weapon states should view with alarm recent reversals of the trend toward nuclear disarmament. To avoid provoking further proliferation, they should recall their sworn obligation under Article 6 of the NPT to strive toward disarmament, and they must begin immediately to work actively and positively for the total abolition of all nuclear weapons.

The city of Hiroshima demands that the United States immediately halt all sub-critical nuclear testing and play a central role in establishing the concrete process by which we will eliminate nuclear weapons in the 21st century.

Tadatoshi Akiba
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima