Japanese a-bomb survivors’ story

needs retelling

Did you know that at least 15 survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki live in Vancouver?

Their case came before Vancouver city council on Apr. 26. A medical team from Hiroshima and Nagasaki clinics is visiting Seattle next month. They want to also come to Vancouver. They are updating the medical records of the survivors. Their findings will be made available to Cana- dian doctors. -

The medical team’s request has received the support of the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons, the United Church and many other groups. Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital has agreed to make its facilities available for the examinations.

Council agreed to meet the request and voted $500 to cover a reception for the medical team.

__ Let’s just remind ourselves of what happened in Japan in 1945. It’s a horror story but it needs to be told over and Over again so that we will not forget its lessons.

On Aug. 6 the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later it dropped another one, this time on Nagasaki. It was the world’s first example of what happens in a nuclear war.

The atomic explosions inflicted horrible deaths and in- describable suffering on the people of these two cities — burns from heat radiation (with temperatures reaching 4,000 degrees C) and fire, in juries from the blast wave, and atomic diseases from the initial radiation, induced radia- tion and residual radiation.

During the first two weeks after the atomic bombing, the death toll in the two cities rose to between 150,000 and 160,000. By the end of December that year it increased to between 190,000 and 230,000. The exposed flesh of the victims began to putrify and was soon infested with mag-

Harry |

Rankin

gots. Those who appeared to be recovering began to devlelop such delayed effects as keloids, cataracts, leukemia, cancer and other pernicious diseases. Now 37 years later, there are nearly 400,000 nuclear Victims in Japan still suffering from delayed after effects.

Why was the atomic bomb used in the first place? By the middle of 1945 Japan had lost all its marine and air forces and had scarcely any war potential left to continue the fighting. The Allies had agreed at Yalta in February 1945, that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan within three months of the surrender of Nazi Germany. For all practical purposes, J apan had already lost the war. But still the U.S. dropped its terrible atomic bombs, not on military targets, but on two densely populated cities. Why? It’s now clear that there were two main reasons.

The first, as U.S. secretary of war Stinson himself ad- mitted, was “‘to get a political advantage in the U.S. post- war strategy against the Soviet Union.” The decision was made for political, not military reasons.

The second reason was to use the Japanese people as guinea pigs to see just what effects an atomic bomb would have on humans. The U.S. forcibly took may of the sur- vivors to military hospitals where they took samples of their blood and cut off affected parts for pathological research. But they gave them no medical treatment, kept the damage caused by their bombings a secret and refused an offer of aid from the International Red Cross.

The people of Vancouver on Apr. 23 — between 80,000 and 100,000 of them — marched for peace. In that march we represented the feelings of the overwhelming majority of the people of this province. But still prime minister Trudeau will not listen and is bowing meekly to U.S. demands to make Canadaa launching pad for nuclear war by testing the cruise missile, which means we must step up our Opposition even more.

Let me conclude with the story of Kinuko Laskey. She was 16 when the bomb hit Hiroshima. “I couldn’t see at all, and I couldn’t get up for a year,” she said. ‘‘The only thing I could see was an orange flame.’’ She has had at least five operations, and eventually her sight has improv- ed. Because of the way she looked she thought she would never get married.

But in 1951 she met a Canadian serviceman stationed in Japan and they were married. They moved to Canada in 1954 and settled in Vancouver. Today Kinuko Laskey is busy in the Canadian Society of Atomic Bomb Survivors. She was one of these who appealed to Vancouver city council to allow the medical team from Japan to examine Canadian survivors.

“We want to save people from this experience,’’ she says, ‘‘and we believe that ending the arms race is the only way.”’

DAN KEETON

TRIBUNE PHOTO

The office of Vancouver’s pro- gressive civic organization was gutted by fire last Friday night — ironically, one night before the premises were to be vacated.

The blaze, which investigators are treating as a possible arson, caused con- siderable damage to files and office equipment in the one-room office of the Committee of Progressive Electors on the second:storey of 2414 Main Street.

There was no insurance on office

BRITISH COLUMBIA

COPE officials David Lane and Atiba Saunders inspect burned-out office following Friday fire.

COPE office gutted in blaze

equipment, and the civic group is already several thousand dollars in the red because of expenditures incurred in the 1982 civic election.

The COPE executive had decided that the organization could no longer affort to maintain the permanent of- fice,'and volunteers were in the process of moving records and equipment to other premises to vacate the office at the end of the month. No COPE officials were near the premises when the fire

struck, at about 10 p.m.

The fire melted the carpet and some office equipment, as well as destroying4 number of files within an area next 10 the street window. Elsewhere coll siderable smoke damage resulted, Ur cluding in other offices in the building:

COPE traditionally has a large deficl following civic elections, and a cai paign was underway among membets and supporters to raise the necessaly funds.

—

BE since she sent a letter to Soviet Communist Party leader Yuri Andropov — and received a reply — 10-year-old fifth grade student Samantha Smith of Man- chester, Maine has attracted international attention.

In her letter, she said she was ‘‘worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war’’ and ask- ed Andropov what he was doing about it. She also con- gratulated him on his election to the leadership and then asked, directly: ‘“Why do you want to conquer the whole world or at least our country?” :

‘Her questions touched a nerve among people around the world, dramatizing the fear and bewilderment that the cold war has created among thousands of children. And Andropov’s reply speaks to that fear, simply and directly. Here is his letter, in full:

“Dear Samantha,

“I received you letter as well as many others coming to me these days from your country and from other countries of the world. :

“It seems to me, and I take it from your letter, that you are a courageous and honest girl resembling in some ways Becky, Tom Sawyer’s friend from the well-known book by your compatriot, Mark Twain. All kids in our country, boys and girls alike, know and love this book.

‘You write that you are worried about our countries getting into a nuclear war and you ask whether we will do something about it.

“Your question is the most important of those that are close to the heart of every person. I will respond to it in an earnest and serious manner.

“Yes, Samanatha, we in the Soviet Union are endeavor- ing to do everything so that there will be no war between our two countries, so that there will be no war at all on earth. This is the wish of everyone in the Soviet Union. That’s what we are taught by Vladimir Lenin, the great founder of our state.

“Soviet people know all too well how distastrous and terrible a war can be. Forty-two years ago, Nazi Germany, which aspired to dominate the whole world, attacked our country, burned and destroyed thousands of our cities and villages, killing millions of Soviet men, women and children.

“In that war, which ended with our victory, we were allies with the United States. We fought together to liberate many nations from the Nazi invaders. I hope you know this from your history books. Today we want very much to live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on the globe, no matter how close or far away they are, and

certainly with such a great country as the United States of °

America.

“ “America, like us, has a frightful weapon which can in-

stantly annihilate millions of people. However we do no

want this weapon ever to be used. : “That is why the Soviet Union solemnly declared to the

world that it will never, but never, be the first to use nuclear

weapons against any country. As a’matter of fact, we pro-

-the U.S.?”” We want nothing of the kind. Nobody in our

"Meeting has been set for May 31, 8 p.m. at Britannia High

PEOPLE AND ISSUES | tion and that the elimination be started of all stockpiles of

these weapons on earth. “‘T believe this is a sufficient reply to your second ques- tion, ‘‘Why do you want to conquer the world or at least

vast and beautiful country — worker, peasants, writer oF doctors, children or grown-ups or members of the govern- ment — wants war, be it big or ‘small.’

“We want peace. We have alot to do: grow grain, build, invent, write books and make space flights. We want peace for ourselves and for all peoples of the planet, for our own kids and for you, Samantha.

“T invite you, if-your parents can let you, to come and visit us, best of all in summer. You will get to know our country, meet children your age and spend time on the seashore in a youngsters’ camp called ‘Artek’ where Soviet schoolchildren and those from other lands come to spend |. their vacations. You will see for yourself: everybody in the Soviet Union stands for peace and friendship among na- tions.

“Thank you for your congratulations. I wish you all the best in your life which you have only begun 'to live.”’

* * cd

t was nearly six years ago that Ana Gonzales

Recabarren, along with two other Chilean women, Ulda Ortiz and Gabriela Bravo, appeared before the Canadian Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights in Toronto to tell her story, an all-too-familiar one since the fascist junta seized power in Chile. In April, 1976, the military arrested her husband, her son and her pregnant daughter-in-law. They have not been seen since.

Like thousands of others in Chile, they are the “‘disap- peared,’’ people seized by the junta and held incom- municado. And for 10 years the families of many of them have waged an heroic campaign to force Pinochet to ac- count for their whereabouts.

Ana Gonzales will be in Vancouver at the end of this month, speaking on behalf of those who have waged that campaign, the “‘Families of the Disappeared.’ A public

School Auditorium, 1661 Napier, Vancouver. It is jointly sponsored by the Congress of Canadian Women, Chilean’s Women’s Committee, Chilean Community of B.C. and Canadians for Democracy in Chile.

Gonzales herself has been the target of the junta since her appearance before the commission in 1977. Accused of “anti-patriotic activities’ for their appearance, the three women were barred from returning to Chile unless they signed pledges repudiating all further political activity. They refused to sign, knowing that any search for their missing relatives would be construed as “‘nolitical.”’

Finally, under the pressure of international protest, the junta was compelled to allow them to return. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE~MAY 6,°1983— Page 2

pose, in general, that an end be put to their further produc-