CAROL A. CLARK Monitor County Editor
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Mourners gathered at Ashley Pond Saturday to remember the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The gathering mirrored many held across the country, drawing attention to the controversial events.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian for Hiroshima, Japan. It dropped a uranium 235 gun-type bomb, named Little Boy, at 8:16 a.m. Some 80,000 to 140,000 people were killed, with 100,000 more seriously injured.
Three days later, another American B-29 bomber, this one called Bock's Car, dropped Fat Man, a plutonium implosion-type bomb on the Mitsubishi Torpedo Plant at Nagasaki. That bomb exploded at 11:02 a.m., northwest of downtown Nagasaki. An estimated 74,000 people died in that blast and another 75,000 sustained severe injuries.
While Saturday's event spoke to the tragic loss of life, many World War II veterans and others hold the adamant belief that those events saved millions of lives and ended the war.
"So many of my older friends believe those bombs were necessary, that they saved more lives and put an end to WWII," Srinivasan Srivilliputhur said.
The traditional sackcloth-and-ashes vigil took place Saturday. Some 100 participants prayed and meditated as they walked along Trinity Drive from Ashley Pond to the Omega Bridge and back.
A peace rally followed the walk. Speakers observed the bombings and voiced their opinions about the current and future manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
Bud Ryan was one of the event organizers. He called the bombings "immoral."
The Rev. John Dear, a Catholic priest and longtime peace activist, said, "This prayer action is to repent for the sin of nuclear weapons and war-making. We come here to call on our sisters and brothers in Los Alamos to quit their jobs - to refuse to design, build and construct weapons of mass destruction. We're going to keep coming back here until nuclear weapons are finally disarmed."
Daniel Craig is chapter president of Vets For Peace. He recalled serving in the first Gulf War in 1991.
"The use of depleted uranium is a tool in occupying other countries and taking what we want," Craig said.
Saturday's event was sponsored by Dragon Fly Sanctuary, Vets for Peace and Pax Christi New Mexico, which is part of Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace movement.
The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest in the Maryknoll Order, traveled from Columbus, Ga., to take part in the peace rally. He was the keynote speaker.
"What's going on in Los Alamos since WWII - our country has spent over $7 trillion in weaponry - I have a problem with that as a human being, as a priest," Bourgeois said. "I'm going to say 'nunca mas' - never again should we use nuclear weapons."
He called nuclear weapons a crime to humanity.
"It's in opposition to life and the sanctity of life," Bourgeois said. "We can't prepare for war and end war at the same time. We have more weapons then ever before and yet never before are we more insecure."
Bourgeois is founder of the School of the Americas Watch. The organization keeps a close eye on the School of the Americas, which was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001.
According to Bourgeois' website, the institute is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Ga. The site claims more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers have been trained in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics, during the last 59 years.
The website also states that graduates have used their skills to wage war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders and others who work for the rights of the poor, according to the website, which adds that hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred and forced into refugee by those trained at the institute.
Booths showing anti-war sentiments were sprinkled around Saturday's event.
"I'm here because the last 62 years of nuclear weapons seems to me to be a mistake," said Jeanne Pahls of www.stopthewarmachine.org [1]. "Now we have 1,902 nuclear weapons at Kirkland. It's the largest stockpile in the world. If we're going to have non-proliferation then I'd like to see the lab converted to something else that's good for the environment - and nuclear weapons everywhere disassembled."
The day ended with the symbolic gesture of floating 3,000 lanterns on Ashley Pond at sunset.
From LA Monitor [2]