This article first appeared in the “Yancey 2014” newsletter.
Boston City Councillors Charles C. Yancey and Frank Baker introduced a resolution that will honor of the thousands of innocent victims of nuclear detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by proclaiming August 6, 2014 to be Hiroshima Day and August 9, 2014 to be Nagasaki Day in the City of Boston.
The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were subjected to the horrors of nuclear bombs detonated in their cities on August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945, respectively, which killed up to 250,000 and left many thousands more severely wounded.
The City of Boston has been a member of Mayors for Peace since 2005 and also has a valued relationship with Kyoto, Japan.
The United States, along with the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China, is bound by the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has repeatedly, and unanimously, called on United States Presidents to seek negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons, in part because cities are the targets of nuclear bombs; and the Conference of Mayors has called on Congress to reject any program to build new nuclear weapons, as well as to– oppose the spread of such weapons.
The U.S. government is instead planning to “modernize” its nuclear weapons arsenal by spending up to $1 trillion of money that could be used instead to fund badly- needed programs for jobs, schools, and housing in Boston and other cities.
The resolution calls on President Barack Obama to live up to the United States’ obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty by seeking the elimination of all nuclear weapons, by honoring the existence of the seven established Nuclear- Weapons Free Zones around the world, and by seeking the extension of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones wherever possible.
The resolution also calls on President Obama and the United States Congress to cancel costly new nuclear and other weapons systems, which do not make its citizens safer.
It calls on Congress to use the savings for programs urgently needed by people of Boston and other cities-a concept supported by Boston voters 3-1 in a 2012 referendum.