It is urgent to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation marks the 77 th . anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In August 1945 – World War II had formally ended in Europe just three months before – the world was confronted with an inhuman and unexpected act. Without prior notice, on the 6 th ., the United States of America (USA) dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and three days later, another on the city of Nagasaki. At the time, these cities had no military importance, and Japan was in the process of capitulation.

The brutality of the aggression soon becomes clear with the effects on the population: more than 100,000 dead at the time of the explosion; many others by the end of that year; overwhelming increase in the incidence of congenital malformations and cancer diseases among the survivors of the bombings and their descendants (a situation that still persists today).
When it decided to commit that crime against Humanity, the US government was not unaware that it was initiating a process that could end life on Earth. But it wanted to intimidate peoples, and above all the Soviet Union, showing that not even humanitarian considerations would prevent the US from resorting to such acts of aggression if it suited them to ensure predominance in the post-War world.

Keeping the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alive is, without a doubt, a simple tribute to the victims; but above all, it is a warning cry of the dangers that lurk on Humanity today: the number of existing nuclear warheads and their power would soar the horror of seventy-seven years ago to a scale never seen before, jeopardising the existence of life on Earth.
That is why it is unacceptable that there are those who expressly believe in the possibility of victory in a nuclear war and advocate “preventive nuclear strikes” as is the case of US ruling elites.

On completing 77 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation: reiterates the need to strengthen action in favour of peace and disarmament (even more urgent in the period we are now experiencing – of escalation of confrontation and war not only in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, but throughout the world and where the trivialisation of the threat of the use of nuclear weapons is worrying); calls on the Portuguese State to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted within the framework of the United Nations, and calls for the
active promotion of peace and general, simultaneous and controlled disarmament, as advocated by the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.

The National Board of the CPPC

Source: World Peace Council