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10/29/09 - Granma (Habana) - Japanese Cruiser for Peace Anchors in Havana

ARNALDO MUSA y AIN
musa.amp@granma.cip.cu

A Japanese Cruiser for Peace anchored in the Havana Harbor on Wednesday
carrying five-hundred passengers, who brought their message of love and
solidarity to the Cuban people.

Among the passengers were ten Hibakushas, survivors of the bombs launched by
the United States on Japan in 1945.

The objective of the trip is to promote a world free from wars and nuclear
weapons.

Kenia Serrano Puig, Head of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the
Peoples (ICAP) welcomed the visitors, who were mostly Japanese. The farewell
ceremony took place at the headquarters of this institution, with a party
devoted to fraternity.

Akira Kawasaki, leader of the trip, said that it was an honor for them to be
in Cuba, a country that champions freedom and also once had to face the
threat of atomic bombs.

This is the 67th trip of this cruiser, its eleventh to Cuba, and its second
around the world carrying the Hibakushas –six from Hiroshima and four from
Nagasaki.

Shunsaburo Tanabe, representative of the Hibakusha Project advocated nuclear
disarmament, noting that the use of these weapons is genocidal and that
people should be aware of the hazard they represent.

“We hope the tragedy of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the
end of the Second World War be the last nuclear attack launched against
humanity,” said Tanabe.

Tanabe was only twenty years old when the United States dropped the bombs on
Japan, against a weakened, starving people.

He still suffers the effects of that event, for radiation has caused him
many illnesses, such as inflammation of the esophagus, the prostate, the
pancreas, as well as chronic asthma, deformation of the knees, hepatitis,
anemia, apoplexies, intestinal cancer and immunodeficiency.