Protest letter against the US nuclear test (January 6, 2012)

January 6, 2012

His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama
President
The United States of America

His Excellency Mr. John V. Roos
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of the United States of America
Embassy of the United States of America in Japan

Letter of Protest

The City of Hiroshima has worked long and hard to help people around the world fully understand the pain and sorrow of our hibakusha experience. We believed that this information would help them develop the strong will required to abolish nuclear weapons. Despite our efforts, the U.S. has announced again a new type of nuclear test conducted sometime between July and September of last year at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, following the ones in November 2010 and March 2011.

Though the test did not involve a nuclear explosion, it can be understood as evidence that the U.S. intends to maintain its nuclear stockpile. Coupled with the fact that you revealed the testing only several months after the fact, in the same fashion as the subcritical nuclear tests you conducted in December 2010 and in February 2011, the test has aroused suspicion regarding your intentions as well as betraying the hopes of the hibakusha and the millions of others who seek a nuclear-weapon-free world. Such actions are completely unacceptable, and on behalf of the A-bombed city of Hiroshima, I vehemently protest.

I sent two similar protest letters to you last year. And yet, it has come to our attention that another test was conducted since then. This fact disappoints me greatly because it seems that our wish for peace has not reached you. I urge you to contemplate the agonizing experience of the survivors who witnessed the bombing, understand their sincere wish for peace, and strive for the earliest possible realization of a world free from nuclear weapons, without betraying our expectations.

MATSUI Kazumi
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima

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