JfP's Statement on NPT submitted for NGO Consultation with DFAT in Canberra 7 April, 2008

Dr. Hideko Nakamura, Japanese for Peace (JfP)

My name is Hideko Nakamura. I am a co-founder of Japanese for Peace, a Melbourne based peace group formed in March 2005 in the lead up to the 60th anniversary of the first atomic bombs dropped on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. JfP was formed in response to a perceived need to raise awareness about this uniquely, and tragically, Japanese experience. We hoped that through this sharing more could be done to prevent war and cultivate a culture of peace.

We advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons, the renunciation of war and the importance of taking war responsibility in order to bring about true reconciliation. To fulfil these purposes we work together with our Australian counterparts in a variety of peace building activities including academic forums, workshops, film screenings, and peace education activities.

We see our role as sowing the seeds of peace, cultivating multicultural understanding and overcoming discrimination within the wider community through our cooperation with community groups and through our own activities, always attempting to engage a wide-cross section of the Australian community in Melbourne. The scope of our activities is also international, as we maintain contact with other peacebuilding groups in Japan and beyond.

Each year we commemorate the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to remember the victims, create awareness and hopefully prevent recourse to the use of such warfare again. Our first commemorative concert at Federation Square in Melbourne in August 2005 attracted a crowd of more than one thousand people. Subsequent concerts have continued to draw large crowds, reflecting a community-wide concern for peace, and understanding of the real threat of nuclear warfare and the need for disarmament.

Guest speakers at the first event included Senator Lyn Alison, Roland Oldham (trade unionist and advocate for the Pacific survivors of French nuclear testing) from Moruroa and local peace activists. Subsequently we held similar peace concerts in August 2006 and 2007 where the stories of Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings were told.

Australia and Japan thankfully enjoy peaceful relations today although it cannot be denied that there remains some deep-lying resentment, particularly amongst elderly Australians who remember Japan as an enemy nation not so long ago. We believe that we have a strong responsibility to share the histories of both nations, for example the history of Japanese political repression on its march to militarism, as a means of fostering a thorough understanding and peace between our two peoples.

Both Australia and Japan play an important role in the international nuclear cycle and with these roles come responsibilities: Australia as an exporter of radioactive uranium, and Japan as the first civilian victims of nuclear warfare. The peaceful relationship Australia and Japan enjoy today offers the perfect opportunity for both countries to work in concert to make a firm stand for nuclear disarmament. With Australia's ascendancy as a nuclear state, at least in so far as its aforementioned implication within the international civil nuclear industry, comes an important responsibility to tread and trade carefully, particularly given the well documented links between civilian and military usages of nuclear materials.

It is with an understanding of the significance of this historic opportunity, on which hinges Australia's foreign policy and standing during the next crucial period, that we call on the Australian government to establish and, more importantly, properly enforce the most stringent of regulations for both the mining and trading of radioactive materials, particularly to limit mining output and outlaw trading with states which continue to refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and with corporations which have a record of having profited from the spread of sensitive technology to such states. We also call on the Australian Government to take strong independent action to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and move nuclear disarmament to the centre of Australian foreign policy, acknowledging that world-wide nuclear disarmament is in Australia's security interests, and demonstrating that Australia will not shy away from taking moral leadership on this issue.

The hibakusha, or survivors who have lent their gravitas to our movement and have courageously shared their horrific experiences of suffering with us, continue to stress that the deaths of their families and friends, and their own suffering, must serve as a warning against further nuclear warfare. We must all make a commitment to prevent current and future nuclear warfare and realise our common interests in peace, regardless of our nationality, creed, political background or race.

Nuclear weapons cannot co-exist with humankind. We must learn the lessons of the past. This is their message.