News

Philip Jennings, General Secretary, UNI Global Union welcomed Mayor Taue and his party which included three Nagasaki High School students and a atomic bomb survivor or hibakusha, eighty year old, Mr Fukahori. The group are members of the Nagasaki Peace Messengers.



Jennings said, “Mayor Taue has become a firm friend of UNI since our highly successful World Congress in Nagasaki a year ago. Mr Fukahori spoke movingly about the need to forgive but never forget the lessons learnt from the atomic tragedy in 1945. UNI wholeheartedly backs the Nagasaki Peace Messengers' petition calling for nuclear disarmament.”



Mayor Taue and his party along with Jennings and other members of UNI visited the Gymnase de Nyon where they spoke to a group of more than a hundred students and answered their questions. The students were visibly moved by Mr Fukahori’s account of the horror of that day in August 1945 when the bomb fell on Nagasaki just three days after the first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. More than 150,000 died instantly during the attacks and many more died from burns and radiation in the aftermath.



The Nyon students were impressed by the dedication of the Japanese High School Students and their commitment to moving the world away from the brink of another nuclear disaster. As members of the Nagasaki Peace Messengers they have already presented a petition to the UN with more that 80,000 signatories calling to an end to nuclear weapons.



Peace Messenger, Maki Shiota, said they were campaigning to ensure Nagasaki was the last city subjected to an atomic bomb. “As the survivors of the bomb become older it is our responsibility to take up their cause. We are the last generation who will hear first hand the voices of the survivors,” she added.



Earlier, Mayor Taue had met with the Mayor of Nyon, Daniel Rossellat in a meeting which draws Nagasaki and Nyon even closer together. Mr Rossellat attended the UNI World Conference in Nagasaki last year. It was also an opportunity to discuss the “Mayors for Peace” project which now includes more than 5000 cities and has the sole aim of ensuring that the atomic tragedy is never repeated anywhere on earth.



The tsunami which struck northeast Japan in March and the subsequent nuclear leak at the Fukishima power station were a stark reminder of the fragility of the planet and the atomic tradegy which hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima some sixty five years earlier. Mayor Taue once again thanked UNI and other friends in Nyon for their support during the recent catastrophe.



UNI Global Union has a warm friendship with the people of Nagasaki – the city where it held its World Congress in 2010. UNI’s Breaking Through plan supports the global nuclear disarmament movement. UNI has hosted the Peace Messengers in Nyon for the past seven years.