While Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima as the first sitting U.S. president in May highlighted again the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, Japan's major anti-nuclear group, which has led the movement for 60 years at home and abroad, sees a rocky road ahead as its membership declines with the passing of atomic bomb survivors.
Since its establishment on Aug. 10, 1956, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations has called on the government to support survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while at the same time seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons.
"Our proclamation issued at the inauguration ceremony says we pledged 'to save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves,' " 87-year-old Mikiso Iwasa, one of the representatives of the organization, said on June 15 in Tokyo.