HIROSHIMA--The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has exposed the fact that a nuclear power plant can be as dangerous as a nuclear weapon, experts told a symposium here over the weekend.
HIROSHIMA--The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has exposed the fact that a nuclear power plant can be as dangerous as a nuclear weapon, experts told a symposium here over the weekend.
The accident points to the urgent need for not only Japan but other nations to review their nuclear power generation policies, experts said at the International Symposium for Peace 2011, held at the International Conference Center Hiroshima on July 31.
"Every nuclear reactor and spent fuel storage pond constitutes an enormous, prepositioned, potential radiological weapon or 'dirty bomb,'" Tilman Ruff, who chairs the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said.
Japan, the only country to have suffered atomic bombings, has been staunchly opposed to nuclear weapons, yet at the same time, it has aggressively promoted nuclear power generation.
"The reasoning that military use of nuclear energy is dangerous and civilian use is safe has collapsed," Motoko Mekata, professor at Chuo University's Faculty of Policy Studies, said.
"Japan, which has placed nuclear disarmament as a pillar of its foreign policy, should abandon civilian use of nuclear energy as well in a message to the international community."
Kazumi Mizumoto, vice president of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City, said the Fukushima accident raises the same question for the international regime governed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The NPT prohibits countries other than the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China from acquiring nuclear weapons, but supports peaceful use of nuclear energy by non-nuclear armed states.
But Mizumoto said countries such as North Korea, Israel, Iraq and Iran started suspected nuclear weapons development programs at reactors and uranium enrichment facilities ostensibly for civilian use, drawing on a loophole.
George Perkovich, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said many people have not associated the Fukushima accident with a weapons-related issue, but he added that more of a connection will be made over time.
About 700 people attended the symposium, titled "The Road to Abolition--What Civil Society Needs to Do Now." The annual symposium, held in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, was its 17th.
It was hosted by Hiroshima city, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and The Asahi Shimbun, and supported by Nagasaki city, the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace, Hiroshima Home Television Co. and Nagasaki Culture Telecasting Corp.
Yoko Ono, speaking as a special guest, said the people of Hiroshima who rose from the ashes of war have laid "the road of hope." She encouraged Japanese to walk that road together after the Fukushima accident.
The avant-garde artist was awarded the 8th Hiroshima Art Prize this year. A commemorative exhibition, "The road of hope--Yoko Ono 2011," is being held at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art through Oct. 16.
Before the panel discussion, two hibakusha in Hiroshima, Kazue Sawada and Satomi Maeda, recounted their experiences and called for nuclear weapons to be abolished.
They were among the roughly 1,650 hibakusha whose messages are recorded on The Asahi Shimbun website, "Memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--Messages from Hibakusha."
The site, (http://www.asahi.com/hibakusha/), opened in November, and an English-language version will be added soon.