Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Nevermore

The detonation of bombs on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki represents the worst war crime and the worst genocide against the people of a defeated country. Japan was preparing its surrender with the single condition that Hirohito would be able to remain as emperor and ensure its security. It is dreadful to recall that after the dropping of the bombs, there were very few reactions that condemned the atrocity that, in a single blow, wiped out 140,000 innocent people and destroyed the small city of Hiroshima.

Harry Truman, then president of the United States, gave a triumphant speech: He had just taken out the enemy, [putting] an end to the war, [which] would save thousands of lives. Washington’s message to Japan, the Soviets and the world was there. Truman harvested an anti-Japanese feeling in the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Truman stated, “They have been repaid many fold.” The United States up until today is the only country that used the H-bomb, as it was named back then. Thus nuclear technology was baptized with blood, and a new era was opened for the world: the nuclear armament competition and the Cold War. The message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also directed to the Soviet Union and Stalin. The greatest military action ever taken against a civilians continues to be an excruciating and abominable memory in the history of the XIX* century.

The world applauded the end of the war. The murderous bombing of an innocent population was uproariously welcomed, or simply was accepted in silence. That sunny morning, the population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was left destroyed, assassinated and mutilated, with enormous unimaginable suffering, when the sky started to rain bombs that, at temperatures higher than 7,000 degrees, burned everything. And, nevertheless, very few voices, although many very important ones such as those of Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, rose up to condemn the brutal military action that Washington took. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15 (even without the bombing, it would have surrendered) and Washington granted the emperor’s security.

Truman showed the world the horror of genocide with nuclear military technology. It opened a path that has never been closed. Countries that could also construct these types of weapons immediately developed their own nuclear weapons. Since then, the world has lived with the threat of which Russell and Einstein [wrote] in an historical manifesto that said the continued existence of humanity was in doubt. The increase in armaments has reached unimaginable levels: Today, there are 11 million bombs, not like those that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — no, much more powerful. A fraction of these could destroy human life on Earth in seconds.

Perhaps we have become accustomed to nuclear weapons continuing to increase, in spite of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which takes into account both the total disarmament of nuclear weapons and the ceasing of production of nuclear weapons. There is no advancement or retrogression. Today, there are five powers with nuclear weapons — that, by the way, constitute the United Nations Security Council and are signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom. Three countries are not signatories of the Treaty, but are tolerated and recognized as countries with nuclear weapons: Israel, Pakistan and India. North Korea signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, rejected it, was recognized again, and violated it. In just a short time, the Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, confirmed that there could be 20 or 25 countries that have sufficient nuclear technology to make weapons.

There is also ample dissemination of nuclear technology made for 20 years by the father of the bomb in Pakistan, Dr. Khan, hero in that country and imprisoned for said activity. Nobody knows to whom he gave nuclear technology, or how much. And the worse part: It is proven that there is trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials. Terrorists could use those materials to construct dirty bombs for carrying out their attacks or sabotages. The question is not if they can use nuclear materials to construct explosive weapons, but when. That is the new threat of the 21st century.

The example given by the Latin American countries to the world firmly indicates the way to follow: The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean devised, discussed, decided, and put into effect in August 1969 the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Thus they defined a region free of nuclear weapons. They established an entity for the control of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean. The treaty that took effect in 1969,** 46 years ago, has been firmly maintained; ours is a region which does not have, nor will be able to have, development, tests or existence of nuclear weapons.

The promoter and the constructor of the Treaty of Tlatelolco was Mexican Ambassador Alfonso Garcia Robles, who received for that reason the Nobel Peace Prize together with Alva Myrdal of Sweden, who pushed for the policies of prohibition and disarmament. Without a doubt this is Mexico’s greatest diplomatic achievement in history, extremely important in the past as [it is] today, for Mexico and for the world. The discussions of the Treaty of Tlatelolco — that takes the name of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs — began between diverse countries under the leadership of Garcia Robles during the administration of Adolfo Lopez Mateos. Mexico demonstrated with facts the true and possible path of non-proliferation and disarmament.

The saying by Ambassador Garcia Robles upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is as or even more valid today as it was in 1982: “Mankind is confronted with a choice; we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament, or face annihilation.”

*Editor’s Note: The author wrote “XIX” in reference to the 20th century (1900s); it should be “XX.”

**Editor’s Note: The Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed on Feb. 14, 1967 and became effective on April 22, 1968.