Hiroshima survivors: resumption of nuclear tests is a crime against humanity

Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organization of survivors of the two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024, accuses US President Donald Trump of major irresponsibility after he announced in a surprise decision the resumption of nuclear weapons tests by the US, a move that, survivors say, endangers the entire world, according to an article published by the Swiss news website Watson.

The cited source recalls that in August 1945 the nuclear bombs launched by the United States on the two Japanese cities caused over 200,000 deaths, representing the only examples of the use of nuclear weapons in war. Through the survivors, who personally experienced the physical and psychological trauma of the explosion and radiation and were also victims of discrimination in their daily lives, post-war Japan sought to turn the experience into a global warning.

In this context, when Trump announced last Thursday that he had ordered the Pentagon to resume nuclear tests to "stand on par with China and Russia,” and the decision was also conveyed through his post on the Truth Social platform during his trip on the Marine One helicopter, the Japanese organization sent a letter of protest to the US embassy in Japan, describing the US president's decision as "absolutely unacceptable” and stating that "it is contrary to the efforts made by nations around the world to build a peaceful world without nuclear weapons.”

Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki also condemned the decision, saying that it "undoes the efforts of the peoples of the world who have shed blood and tears for a world without nuclear weapons.” In front of the press, he asked rhetorically: "If nuclear tests are to resume immediately, wouldn't this decision make Trump unworthy of the Nobel Peace Prize?” The question from the mayor of Nagasaki was an allusion to the intention of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to propose Trump's nomination for this distinction.

The Japanese reaction takes place against the backdrop of a growing global crisis: Trump stated that "due to the testing programs of other countries, I have ordered the War Department to begin testing nuclear weapons from today,” explicitly suggesting a competition with Russia (in second place) and China ("at a distance, but it will be in the next five years”). American military experts explained that the resumption of nuclear tests, especially explosive ones, requires major investments, the preparation of test sites, significant resources and could take between 24 and 36 months to be operational. This decision by the American president is causing alarm in the international community: it could open a new cycle of nuclear armament, a risk that the survivors' association considers unacceptable.

The Nihon Hidankyo organization was founded in August 1956 and has since committed itself to campaigning for a world free of nuclear weapons, to promoting the social and economic rights of all survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including those living outside Japan. According to data in March 2024, there were approximately 106,825 survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Japanese survivors argue that the resumption of nuclear bomb tests would revive an industry of fear and destruction that should have remained relegated to history.

In a context in which the nuclear weapons in the world arsenal exceed 13,000 pieces globally, and some actors are increasing their stocks at an accelerated pace (such as the case of China), the message of the Japanese survivors is a grim warning: not only will global security be affected, but the moral legitimacy of discrimination against nuclear weapons is also lost. The resumption of tests is not only a technical-military decision: it is an act that shakes the entire system of agreements, moratoriums and similes of a civic city built after 1945.

The recent decision of the United States should not be viewed in isolation: it reopens a chapter that the entire international community hoped to have closed. The survivors of the Japanese bombs have become moral guardians of nuclear memory, and what is happening now is for them a betrayal of the ideal for which they fought so hard. If the world gives in to the pressure of military strategies, then they say that the "nuclear taboo" - the idea that nuclear weapons should not be used or tested - will be seriously weakened.