-

=

LUCKY DRAGON-WITNESS TO ATROCITY

Anever to he forgotten ship = *

By MICHAEL SAND

On March 1, 1954, the United States
exploded a hydrogen bomb over the
Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The blast marked the beginning of a
class of “super” weapons that dwarfed
the atomic bombs used in the destruc-
tion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just
as these earlier nuclear weapons had
dwarfed the conventional explosives of
World War II. Military teams making
the measurements at the coral reef
were told to expect a blast of seven
megatons (million tons of TNT), the
biggest explosion ever.

The Bikini device detonated with an
actual force of 15 megatons, more than
double the size expected, producing tre-
mendous quantities of radioactive deb-
ris which heavily contaminated more
than 7,000 square miles of the sur-
rounding Pacific Ocean.

In addition to the military personnel
caught in the fallout (who were given
some degree of protection), radioactive
dust and ash descended upon several
hundred residents of Rongelaap and
other islands in the Marshall group.
Many of these islanders, under a U.S.-
administered “trusteeship”, were af-
flicted with serious illnesses from
which they still suffer and die.

Twenty-three others were unwitting-
ly ‘present: ‘the crew members of the
140 ton Japanese tuna trawler Fukuryu
Maru (Lucky Dragon), drifting approxi-
mately 90 miles east-northeast of the
Bikini. site, and 40. miles outside the
pre-announced “off-limits” -perimeter..
The fishermen, already on deck before

the pre-dawn. blast, saw the. brilliant... -

flash of a “sunrise in the west”. They
were scon inundated by its radioactive
“ashes of.death’’.... =

ieenn|

Sa
™ way

ba

‘million people:

~ Lucky Dragon?”

Barely five weeks into its anticipated
three month voyage, the Lucky Dragon
headed for its home port of Yaizu. The
fishermen arrived there two. weeks
later, suffering headaches, nausea, and
painful facial burns. The entire crew
was hospitalized.

On August 29, 1954, radio operator
Aikichi Kuboyama fell into a coma with
a high white blood cell count. He died
on September 23, the world’s first hyd-
rogen bomb victim: The remaining crew
members even today report for periodic
check-ups, in case a time-delayed de-
terioration in blood count should sud-
denly occur. :

Such of the Lucky Dragon’s 12,000-

Ib. catch that had not been sold and
distributed was condemned after in-
spection as being extremely radioactive.
But some of the affected fish had been
marketed in distant cities, and as the
fish was tuna, which is cut up and sold
in very small proportion, many Japan-
ese feared for their survival.

Never Appreciated in West

The threat of radioactive contamina-
tion became part of everyday life in
Japan, This tragedy- revived the an-
guish of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
1945, and aroused universal indigna-
tion. “It has never been appreciated in
the West”, wrote the Oxford historian

Richard Storry (A History of Modern

Japan, p. 261), that the Lucky Dragon
disaster “caused resentment in Japan
at least equal to that occasioned by the
atomic attacks on Hiroshiinai and Naga-

saki”. A petition against A & H Bombs’ ©

was signed in a few months by over 20
Kuboyama’s_ funeral
was attended by 400,000 mourners
(New York Times figures).

The people of Japan refused to forget

“the incident, and annual commemora-

tive meetings are held on March 1| near

the Lucky~ Dragon’s home. port of...

Yaizu.
The ironically named Lucky Dragon

-s.was.also/a casualty of. Bikini.»After its

emergency return to Yaizu on March

14, 1954, the vessel underwent exten-__

sive tests for radioactivity. It was taken
over by the Japanese government,
which from 1956-1966 used the rebuilt
trawler as a fisheries training ship. Sold
to a scrap dealer in April 1966, the
Lucky Dragon was denuded of its fit-
tings and abandoned to the elements in
a graveyard for wooden ships in Tokyo
Bay.

On October 1967 the ship was mira-

culously found by local residents. A.

reader’s letter, “Should We Sink the
in Tokyo’s largest
circulation daily the Asahi Shimbun of
March 10, 1968 triggered a significant
new movement: “The Lucky Dragon is
a ship never to be forgotten by any
Japanese. It should remind us of what

happened at the Bikini Atoll in the
Pacific Ocean 14 years ago. Let us dis-
cuss immediately how to preserve this
monument”. :

Participants in the 1969 meeting to
commemorate the Bikini incident spon-
sored by the Japan Council Against
A&H Bombs (Gensuikyo) issued a na-
tionwide call “for the preservation of a

surviving witness of ‘nuclear fallout”. -

This appeal was circulated broadly
throughout Japan.

A “Lucky Dragon Preservation Com-
mittee” was initiated in July 1969, and
began to raise funds to restore the
Lucky. Dragon; just as the Atom Bomb
Dome was built in Hiroshima. A target
of over $125,000 in donations was set,
and in February 1970 the Preservation
Committee assumed ownership of the
vessel. Volunteers helped to pump out
the waterlogged ship, and managed to
get it onto dry land, where pumping
operations were continued.

6 e ®

On April 1, 1972 the Preservation
Committee rented a patch of land
around the Lucky Dragon from the
Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and
began the work of restoration The pro-
tetany Governor of Tokyo, Ryukichi

inobe, lent his support in-the estab-

lishment of a.permanent “Peace Park”.

with the Lucky Dragon as its central
focus. The Tokyo park project is sche-
duled for completion in 1976. ay
Scientists and engineers of the Com-
mittee have drawn up plans for a tri-
angular-shaped roof to protect the Lucky

’ Dragon from* the elements:.Within this

“sanctuary” they will build a library
for the preservation and exhibition of
documents, photographs and ‘tape rec-
ordings of the movement to prohibit

nuclear weapons. “The ship is prose-

cuting evidence against the atrocious,

inhumane nuclear weapons test carried . ,

out by.the U.S. government,” writes

‘Judo Hirota, general director of the
_, Preservation. Committee. “We shall use. ,
our restoration work to teach correct:

information about nuclear weapons to
the young people”.

Stockholm Appeal

The correct information about the
genocidal nuclear weapons policies of
the U.S. government must also be dis-
seminated in North America. In August
1945, atomic death was visited upon
300,000 people in Hiroshima and Naga-
saki to prevent the advancing Soviet
forces from assuming a role in the libe-
ration of Japanese territory. U.S. impe-
rialism then further developed and de-

- ployed its nuclear arsenal as a chal-

lenge to the Soviet Union and the world
socialist community, and the forces of
national liberation.

Washington threatened to use nuc-

lear weapons during the Korean War.

’ Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958, and again

tion of the, Bandung Conference, at |

., light of the Bikini fireball, called upon

“such prominent. scientists as Frederic

“Nothing is more crucial to those wh0 —

be KERR ROE A
Boye my e webs ed < 2 oss
oS i Wane dete ys AFLELED

The nuclear shot at Bikini was meant |
to blackmail the Vietnamese liberation |
fighters besieging the French fortress |
of Dienbienphu in the first part of 1954, |
and the Soviet diplomats supporting |
them at the Geneva Conference on In- |
dochina. The Pentagon issued threats
to use nuclear weapons during the ~ |

more recently during the Vietnam War. |
It continues to-do so in all major inter-
national crises. z
In 1950 the World Peace Council
secured tens of millons of signatures
on the “Stockholm Appeal” for the pro- —
hibition of atomic weapons. After the
Lucky Dragon incident, powerful new —
world forces joined this epochal move- —
ment. On April 2, 1954, Prime Minister }

Nehru condemned the Bikini test in a |
speech to the Indian Parliament. Neh- —
ru’s speech, with its call for a cessation

of nuclear testing, gave direction to |
Asian and. African opinion that found |
expression a year later in the Declara-

which the leaders of a majority of the |
human race were assembled. _
Forgotten Horror |
“In Europe, the 1955 “Russel-Einstein —
Manifesto”, also drafted in the burning

all scientists to unite in opposition to |
the development of weapons of mass —
destruction. This Manifesto, signed by

Joliot-Curie and Linus Pauling, led |
directly to the formation of the Pug: —
wash Movement, an_ international |
scientific forum which continues to in- | —
spire not only scientists but all peace- —
minded people to rise in further action |
for the total abolition. of nuclear |
weapons. : S

The restoration of the Lucky Dragon |
is of the greatest symbollic importance. —

created the Hiroshima, Nagasaki and
Bikini disaster than the production of
forgetfulness, because only those who
have forgotten the horror will be ready |
to take part in further destructive ac- |
tions, or even to submit to such actions: —

India’s CP seeks left-democratic unity

The 10th Congress of the
Communist Party of India, at-
tended by 1,600 delegates, and
guests from fraternal Parties,
met for six days at the begin-
ning of February, to. chart its
course and declare its policies
on both domestic and interna-
ticnal matters.

In a report headed, Defeat the
Conspiracy of Reactioin and Im-
perialism, C. Rajeswara Rao
(who was unanimously re-elected ©
general .secretary) summed up
the decisidns of the 10th Con-
gress. >

(S. A. Dange was re-elected
Party chairman by a similar un-
animous vote. In December,

both men were awarded the
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1975—Page 6

Order of Lenin by the Soviet
Union, in tribute to their “ser-
vices to the communist, work-
ing-class, and national liberation
movement.’’)

- The solid unity shown in the
10th Congress debate and adop-
tion. of the -political resolution
and other documents, said Rao,
is a unity “born out of the bitter
experience of life and death

mass struggles our Party has ©

waged in this most turbulent
period in defence of democracy,
unity and independence of our
motherland, foiling the conspir-
acies of internal reaction and
U.S. imperialists.” :

The Communist Party of In-
dia put forward the slogan of
left and democratic governments
.at the centre and in the states as

a perspective which can be
achieved in the course of the re-

-volutionary struggle against re-

action and imperialism.

The inspiring lesson of Kerala
(state) United Front Govern-
ment, “headed by Comrade
Ashutha Menon,” is that a left
and democratic government in-
cluding the . ruling Congress
Party, can survive and imple-
ment radical democratic pro-
grams, Rao pointed out, where
majority Congress Party g6vern-
ments collapse because they
evad election promises.

The 10th Congress document
stated: “Our country needs all-
in unity of left and democratic
forces to take it forward along
the road of full-gledged demo-
cracy, finally leading to social-
ism.”

To mark its 50th anniversary
year, the CPI, founded on Dec.
26, 1925, has set tasks such as

’ educating the whole Party mem-

bership in Party history in all
the regional languages. Special
publications and seminars are
also envisaged. :

Organizational targets to be
realized by Dec. 1975 include:
“membership of the Party to be
increased to 500,000; 5,000,000
rupees to be collected for Party
fund ($650,000); the sale of Party
jcurnals to be increased by 50%;
the membership of the mass or-
ganizations to be substantially
increased.”

Among several resolutions ap-
proved were those demanding
reinstatement of railway work-
ers dismissed during last May’s
strike; condemning ill-treatment

of Indian political prisoners, “de |
tained without trial or convicte® |
in connection with democratic |
mass movements, among whom |
are thousands of CPI leaders and E
werkers; demanding house-sit@ |
and debt relief for the poor, lat |
gely agricultural workers; and }
for government rellef for |
drought-hit and famine-stricke? —
people in vast areas of the coun" |
try. Many resolutions dealt with |
international issues. :

“History has placed a great |
responsibility on the shoulders
of our Party in the most cruci@ —
period before our country ants
the world, “said the 10th Con-
gress documents. “Let us rise to
the occasion and fulfill our his
toric duty as an important com”
tingent of the world communist
movement.”

ae