Hiroshima residents plead with Abe to change course

About 1,000 Hiroshima residents on Wednesday protested against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reinterpretation of the country's pacifist Constitution near the city's Peace Memorial Park, where a ceremony was held to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the US atomic bombing in 1945.

Abe attended the ceremony and addressed a crowd of about 45,000, including survivors of the bombing, their descendants, peace activists and officials including US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy.

After the ceremony, a group of victims of the atomic bombing expressed to Abe their hope that the government would retract the cabinet decision that lifted the ban on exercising the so-called right of "collective self-defense" with allies. But they were rebuffed by Abe, who said his new military posture aims to protect Japanese people's peaceful life.

Protesters shouting "Get out of Hiroshima, Abe" and "We strongly oppose war and collective self-defense," said that the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must not be replayed, but that Abe's approach will drag Japan into war again after nearly seven decades.

Japan's war-renouncing Constitution long banned the country from using force outside its islands, but Abe, through a recent reinterpretation, gave a green light for the country's Self-Defense Forces to be deployed in "collective self-defense" with allies, allowing the SDF to fight overseas.

"Abe wants to follow the military road of the past by exercising collective self-defense," a protester, who identified himself as Sakaki, told Xinhua, adding that "self-defense is the trigger of all wars".

Another protester, Yoshinaga, said that "lifting the ban will lead to a replay of Hiroshima's tragedy, and it is Abe himself who leads Japan into the wrong way. It is unforgivable."

The latest nationwide poll by Japan's Kyodo News said that 84.1 percent of respondents believe the government has yet to provide a sufficient explanation regarding the cabinet's decision, while 60.2 percent of respondents said they oppose exercising the right to collective self-defense.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said during the ceremony that the Japanese government should realize that the country has avoided war for 69 years because of the war-renouncing Constitution, adding, "We must continue as a nation of peace in both word and deed" - alluding to the controversial notion of collective self-defense.

(China Daily 08/07/2014 page11)