13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors Visit Los Alamos

mp3 – 100413

CCNS NEWS UPDATE

Runs 10/4/13 through 10/11/13

(THEME UP AND UNDER)  This is the CCNS News Update, an overview of the latest nuclear safety issues, brought to you every week by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety.  Here is this week’s top headline:

*  13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors Visit Los Alamos

Wishing to see where the atomic weapon was created that was dropped on their city, 13 World Friendship Center Ambassadors from Hiroshima, Japan, visited Los Alamos this week.  http://homepage2.nifty.com/wfchiroshima/  They gathered at Ashley Pond to see the location where the bomb was created and viewed the U.S. manufacturing facilities where plutonium cores for nuclear weapons are still being made just south of the pond.  The trip to New Mexico was the last leg of a three-week tour in the U.S.  They spent two weeks in Oregon and Washington state.

The World Friendship Center sent the group to tell the stories of survival, hope and rebuilding of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing on August 6^th, 1945.  Barbara Reynolds founded The World Friendship Center in 1965 in Hiroshima, with the motto to “foster peace, one friend at a time.”  Their goals are to tell the story of Hiroshima and the Hibakusha, who are the surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to promote world peace; and to work towards a nuclear-free world.

The Ambassadors included Hibakusha.  One gentleman told the story of when he was a child walking to school with sister when they witnessed the bomb explode and the resulting devastation.  Another was also a child who walked back into the city after the bombing to look for her sister.  The Ambassadors also included others whose families and friends were directly affected by the atomic bombing in Japan.  In New Mexico, they made six presentations in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe to elementary and high school students, and students at the University of New Mexico.  They also made an evening presentation at the Pax Christi Santa Fe gathering at the Santa Nino Regional Catholic School.

Ellie Voutselas, with Pax Christi Santa Fe, was the main New Mexico organizer.  She said, “I found the day permeated with love and togetherness between us and our Japanese brothers and sisters, a truly inspirational experience.”

The Ambassadors also visited the historical marker at the site of the Department of Justice World War II prison camp in the Frank Ortiz Park in Santa Fe.  In a moving ceremony, the Ambassadors honored the 4,555 Japanese men, many of whom were ministers, teachers, artists, journalists and businessman, who were held there.

Father John Dear, said, “It was a moving, powerful experience to accompany 13 friends from Hiroshima, including several atomic bomb survivors, to Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb.  They inspire me to redouble my effort to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  This is our shared hope – the pursuit of a world without war, a new world of peace and nonviolence.”

This has been the CCNS News Update.  For more information, please visit our website at http://www.nuclearactive.org and like us on Facebook.