日本に理解のある友人のような振りをして綴ってきた『私の履歴書』。
タイミングから言っても日経〜米帝の連携による情宣活動であることは明白だったが、最後の最後に冷酷なホンネが漏れた。
保守派の皆さん、つっこんでやってください！
私の履歴書
ウイリアム・Ｊ・ペリー (30)
核無き世界へ
「非核大国」の協力重要
ゴールへ確かな歩みで前進
（日経新聞 ２０１０年１２月３１日）
（略）
核廃絶に向けた道程において、特に重視しているのは日本のような「非核大国」の動向である。核廃絶には核保有国だけでなく、非核保有国の協力が不可欠だからだ。日本のようにお金も技術力もありながら、「非核」の地位に留まっている国が独自の核開発に走っては元も子もない。今後、米国は日本などの同盟国とこの問題について真剣に協議しなければならない。（にゃんこのコメント）
米国は日本の核保有を許さない、とね。
そりゃさ、自分が核兵器で大虐殺した国が核武装したらいつか復讐されるんじゃないかと思うと怖いよね(笑)初めて広島を訪れた時、私の心に浮かんだ、１つの疑問についても最後に触れておきたい。核兵器の使用を巡って、日本にはまだ深い悲しみや憤りがあることは理解している。ただ、広島で原爆に関する展示物、説明を目にした時、その悲惨さを訴える文言や写真は数多かった半面、そのような惨劇がなぜ起こったかについての記述が一切なかったことに違和感を覚えた。
どうして、原爆の投下という非運に日本は見舞われなければならなかったのか。その「原因」について自問、自省する文言を広島で目にすることはできなかった。いろいろな事情があるとは思うが、そのことを私はとても残念に思っている。（にゃんこのコメント）
ええ、ボクはＮＹの”トリビュートWTCビジターセンター”に行ってきましたが「そのような惨劇がなぜ起こったかについての記述が一切なかった」ことが残念でしたね。（略）
追記）
で、いま広島の”平和記念資料館”の理事長はアメリカ人の核廃絶運動家なわけだ。
彼が就任したのは２００７年。前年の北朝鮮核開発成功を受けて米国の核戦略が大きく変更になったころだ。
漏れはリーパー理事長の良心を疑いはしない。
彼の活動は核不拡散に特化している。彼は慎重に周辺的事情への評価、大東亜戦争や無差別爆撃、そして原子力発電についての評価を避ける。運動は目的を拡散させたら破綻する。中韓を巻き込むのは歴史認識の裏口からの導入ではなく、彼等が核拡散を進めている（或いは意欲している）からだという主張は本心だろう。それは正しい選択だろう。
しかし、にもかかわらず、彼の活動はペリーの「核廃絶」運動と矛盾しない。というかサポートになっていることに注意しよう。
ただ、彼は米国での一般的認識「原爆が日本の敗戦を決断させ１００万の米兵と日本人の命を救った」というプロパガンダを否定していることは注目に値する。これはペリー氏、或いは多くの米国人と全く相容れない立場だ。「敗戦の決断はソ連参戦で決定づけられたのであり、原爆もそれ自体は無差別爆撃の一つに過ぎなかった」。この論を理解するには、日本帝国はサイパン陥落から敗戦を受け容れており、ソ連に仲介工作を期待していたことを知らなければならない。その降伏を模索する帝国に無意味な虐殺を敢行したのがアメリカ合州国である。この認識をもったならば、誠実なアメリカ人であるなら誰でも、永遠の十字架を負ったと感じざるを得ないだろう。いかに日本軍の悪逆非道を妄想しても決してその疚しさを打ち消してはくれない。原爆はインディアン虐殺とならぶ米国の原罪である。
追記）
ところで上記”トリビュートWTCビジターセンター”には世界でも知られた原爆症少女貞子の展示と千羽鶴が飾られている。連携しているだね。
Sadako and the thousand paper cranes
- 作者: Eleanor Coerr,Ronald Himler
- 出版社/メーカー: Puffin Books
- 発売日: 1999/12/01
- メディア: ペーパーバック
- クリック: 8回
- この商品を含むブログ (1件) を見る
（財）広島平和文化センターの新理事長の就任について
http://www.city.hiroshima.lg.jp/www/contents/0000000000000/1178018920103/files/haifu.pdf
１ 氏 名
スティーブン・ロイド・リーパー(Steven Lloyd Leeper)
［略歴］
生年月日：昭和 22年（1947 年）11月 20日（５９歳）
国 籍：アメリカ合衆国
最終学歴：ウェストジョージア大学大学院（臨床心理学修士課程修了）
［主な職歴等］
昭和 60年(1985 年)〜昭和 61年(1986 年) 広島 YMCA英語教師
昭和 61年(1986 年)〜平成 19年(2007 年) 有限会社トランズネット（翻訳・通訳業）取締役（平成 19年 4月退任）
昭和 61年(1986 年)〜平成 10年(1998 年) 株式会社モルテン 海外渉外アドバイザー
平成 14年(2002 年)〜平成 15年(2003 年) 平和市長会議事務局 ニューヨーク連絡員
平成 15年(2003 年)〜平成 19年(2007 年) (財)広島平和文化センター 専門委員
２ 就任年月日
平成19年(2007年)4月23日
（略）
(4) こうした課題を踏まえ、次の理由から、齊藤忠臣氏の後任としてスティーブン・
ロイド・リーパー氏を理事長に迎え、本財団の取組をさらに拡充するための体制強化を図る。
①同氏は、昭和６０年(1985 年)から広島市を主な活動拠点としながら、平和関係資料などの翻訳業務に従事する一方で、「グローバル・ピースメーカーズ・アソシエーション（世界平和運動家協会）」を主宰し、核兵器廃絶に向けた活動にも積極的に取り組むなど、核兵器廃絶と世界恒久平和の実現を願う「ヒロシマの心」を十分理解されている。
②同氏は、平成１４年(2002 年)２月から平成１５年(2003 年)６月までの間、平和市長会議事務局ニューヨーク連絡員としても活動されており、平和市長会議に関連した情報収集や国連で開催される NGO 会議等への出席を通じて、国連や反核ＮＧＯとの幅広いネットワークを構築されている。
③同氏は、平成１５年(2003 年)７月から現在まで本財団の専門委員として、齊藤理事長を補佐するとともに、平和市長会議の事業の企画及び実施について、中心的な役割を果たされている。
④さらには、米国・日本での生活、世界的な活動を通じ、広島に住む外国人の現状や海外の事情などにも精通されており、本財団が取り組む国際交流事業の展開にも力を発揮していただくことができる。
（略）
Sunday, Aug. 5, 2007
CLOSE-UP
STEVEN L. LEEPER
Mr. Hiroshima-san
By ERIC PRIDEAUX
Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070805x1.html
In a sense, it is the ultimate irony: The man appointed to oversee the memorial to victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 by an American B-29 aircraft is . . . an American.
Steven L. Leeper, chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVEN L. LEEPER
But antiwar activist Steven L. Leeper says that since his April appointment as the first foreigner to be chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation — which operates the museums and memorials — residents of the world's first city to experience nuclear warfare have welcomed him.
That is apart from some rightists who protested a May 31 article in the local newspaper that, Leeper says, inaccurately quoted some of his views.
However, when it comes to the question of whether the United States was justified in dropping the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki three days later — together instantaneously claiming 210,000 lives — Leeper agrees with Japanese at both ends of the political spectrum that those attacks were inexcusable.
"Nuclear bombs are inhumane, inflicting vast destruction and indiscriminate slaughter in the span of an instant. Their use cannot be justified, regardless of the reasoning applied," he is on record as declaring (in fluent Japanese).
Leeper, 59, was born in Illinois to a missionary father; his mother was an antiwar activist during the Vietnam War. He has lived in Japan both as a child and adult, working here for years as a translator and consultant to the automobile industry.
In 2002, Leeper became the U.S. representative to the U.N. nongovernmental organization Mayors for Peace, representing 1,698 cities in 122 countries seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 2003, he became a special adviser to the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.
The timing of our interview drove home just how raw the atomic bombings remain in the hearts of Japanese: On the same day, Fumio Kyuma resigned as defense minister after saying the bombings "could not be helped" — a statement widely deemed unacceptable in Japan.
How do you regard an American being appointed to this very symbolic role?
I think the main symbolic meaning is that the hibakusha (atomic-bomb survivors) have all along been saying that they are not interested in revenge or retaliation. What they are doing is sublimating all of the urge for revenge and anger into this pursuit of a world without war and nuclear weapons.
Ever since he became Hiroshima mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba has been talking about the need to reject the path of revenge and animosity and walk the path of reconciliation. And he is speaking for the hibakusha when he talks like that.
So I think my presence here as an American is evidence that this is in fact their attitude, and I have been warmly welcomed by everyone — especially the hibakusha, who have come to my office and welcomed me and wished me well.
Have you been criticized for occupying this role?
There has been a small outbreak. I need to be really, really careful about this — and I need to ask you to be careful about this — because I don't want to be attacked for this again.
I made some comments that were reported wrongly in a local newspaper, which made it sound as if I was already deciding to put Koreans and Chinese onto a committee to redo the museum here. In response to that, there were a number of protests, but much of it seemed to be orchestrated by a certain very small group of radical rightwing people.
However, the whole thing died away very quickly. From almost everywhere, I was getting support during that. People were saying, "No, don't worry about this. We're behind you all the way."
Do you personally feel there is a necessity to pool the opinions of Chinese and Koreans on how the new exhibit will look?
Yes. I think it's important to get ideas from Koreans and Chinese, but not just Koreans and Chinese, also from leftwing and rightwing Japanese and Europeans and all kinds of people, because we're really trying to create a museum that will have universal appeal.
One thing I have to point out, of course, is that we are not interested in the opinions of people who think the atomic bombing was a good idea or that nuclear weapons are necessary. That is part of the misunderstanding that happened. Some people were thinking that, as an American, I am going to be changing the message of this museum to somehow justifying the atomic bombings. That is not happening. This museum takes the position that these nuclear weapons should never have been used and they should never be used again. That is a non-negotiable message.
Will there be any kind of increased awareness-building of Japan's aggression in Korea or China?
I really don't know about that. That's part of what I want to get everybody's ideas on, about how we address this issue. If it were completely up to me — this is not the Peace Culture Foundation speaking, or the museum, or the Hiroshima city government; this is just Steve's personal idea — if it was up to me, we would start at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945 [when the bomb was dropped]. I would not talk about previous history at all, because any talk about history opens a door to endless argument and that's not my interest. My focus is: How do we keep it from happening again? How do we get from here to a world in which nuclear weapons are obviously not necessary?
What would you say is the status of Japan's peace movement today?
As with a lot of peace movements around the world, we are under heavy attack. There's a big backlash. Let me go into a little depth on this one.
Around here, a lot of us tend to think that we are — by "we" I mean human beings — we human beings are trying to graduate from a war culture to a peace culture. What that means, really, is that we are trying to make a big shift from a highly competitive approach to life to a highly cooperative approach.
This is not to say that we are totally against any kind of competition. But just that the balance right now is so heavily weighted on the competition side that it is impossible to cooperate at the level we need to cooperate to solve our problems. So what we're trying to do is graduate from there.
A survivor of the Hiroshima bomb named Ichiro Moritaki was in a hospital after the attack, and he was thinking about the meaning of this new weapon. He came to the conclusion that it marked the end of what he called "the civilization of power" — and the beginning of the "civilization of love."
What he meant by that was that we can no longer resolve our conflicts and decide whose side god is on by contests of all-out destructive power. So we now have to incorporate other methods of conflict resolution, like talking, negotiation, treaties, laws.
But right now there's this big disconnect between the vast majority of people who really do see that the world is one, that we are all members of the human family, and those who see the world as a competition for survival. We are being forced into the former recognition by environmental issues. We have global warming to deal with: Our oceans are dying, the air is dirty, the land is dirty. We've got some serious environmental problems that we cannot solve through just free-market competition. This has to be addressed through international cooperation.
From Hiroshima's point of view, the most important (issue) right now is the control of nuclear weapons and the prevention of any use of nuclear weapons in the next few years.
Wherever I go, I am constantly encountering people of all stripes who really understand that we just cannot continue to have wars and we certainly can't start throwing nuclear weapons around if we intend to solve these other problems that we're facing.
And yet our leaders, the leaders of most countries right now, are people who grew up through the war culture. Many of them derive directly from the military-industrial complex, many of them are weapons dealers or weapons manufacturers or get their money from manufacturers and dealers, so there's this highly competitive, highly aggressive bunch of warriors who are leading the world when most of the people want peace.
So we're in a transition phase from a world that is highly competitive and wants to see enemies here and there, compared to a world in which we are all Spaceship Earth and we're trying to save our environment. We're trying to make a world in which half of humanity is not living with less that $2 a day, and 24,000 people are not dying every day from hunger.
In the postwar period and up to maybe the 1970s and '80s, there was a vibrant antiwar and anti-atomic bomb culture here. Do you think that it has subsided with the aging of the hibakusha?
Yes, definitely I do. The generation that really knew the war and, in Hiroshima, the generation that really knows what happened here at the time of the bombing, has moved out of power and is moving out of the world altogether. Therefore, that generation just does not have the influence that it used to have. That's for sure.
And the young people seem to me to be kind of divided. . . . There are young people who have an extremely advanced consciousness when it comes to the environment and peace and making a better world and trying to live more like indigenous people to lighten their burden on the planet.
Then there's the other kind that is just trying to succeed in the system as it has been. They're really not thinking much about the world; they're thinking about how they're going to win in the competitive environment they've been placed in.
I think that one of the issues is that this highly competitive fervor has been fanned by terrorism, the threat of terrorism, the events of 9/11 and the general coming to power of the highly competitive and warlike people who are now running the United States and elsewhere.
One thing about a military-industrial complex is that it really must have an enemy, and now they've got terrorists as an enemy. Over here there's been a lot of media given to the whole abduction program of the North Koreans, and the fear of rising Chinese economic dominance and power, and the fear of North Korean nuclear weapons and that sort of thing.
And so there are a lot of people here, even a lot who tend to be peace people against nuclear weapons, who are afraid of the North Koreans or the Chinese, or somehow they have this fear that they have to have some sort of military defense to protect them.
So do you think that Japan has the right to "normalize" war-renouncing Article 9 of its Constitution to counter perceived threats from abroad with its own missiles?
It certainly has the right to do that. It's their country and they can do what they want to do with it. But to me, from the point of view of peace culture and from the point of view of the safety and stability of Japan, it seems that what they need to be investing in is a peaceful and stable world. Not a world with enemies and intense winner-take-all, cut-throat competition. They need a world that is highly cooperative.
If the Japanese were suddenly in a world where it was impossible to do any trading with China and the United States, an awful lot of Japanese would starve to death. They can't even feed themselves without a lot of trading. So they need a stable, peaceful world. And that's what they should be investing in.
Turning to the Article 9 situation, people around the world have generally had a very high regard for Japan because of this Article 9. The Japanese are widely seen as a force for peace and a kind of stabilizing force. A lot of countries see them as that, and it seems to me, from what I've heard directly from a lot of people around the world . . . that people are surprised by this new information that Japan has the third- or fourth-largest military budget in the world. A lot of Europeans were very shocked when Japan sent the Self-Defense Force people over to Iraq. It makes people stop and think about what Japan really stands for. What are they up to?
There is the question of whether the atomic bombings were necessary. Recently we've had this interesting comment from then-Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma. How do you regard his remarks that nothing could be done about the bombings?
I'm really not sure what he was meaning to say. It's hard for me to imagine that he was really saying that it was OK or somehow perfectly understandable.
Shoganai (nothing to be done about it) could derive from a lot of different attitudes. But I can say for sure that it was definitely taken as a very offensive remark by people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it seemed to be implying that somehow the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war, or that it was an acceptable event in history and not any particular tragedy or error.
Do you, without qualification, denounce the view that there was any military purpose to the bombs?
I completely reject that it was necessary. All of the top military people of the United States at the time, from (U.S. Fleet Admiral William Daniel) Leahy and [then Gen., and later Pres. Dwight D.] Eisenhower (1890-1969) on down, everyone was against the use of that bomb at that time. The top brass thought it was unnecessary and a heinous act. I'm talking about the American military. The ones pushing for it were some civilian leaders and some of the military people actually involved in making the bomb. They really wanted to use it.
There are some who say it was not the last bombing of World War II; it was actually the first bombing of World War III, and that it was aimed at Russia and not at Japan. It was to warn Russia that we can do this to you if we want to — it was a threat, an effort to establish dominance in the postwar world. I am not enough of a historian to judge.
But as I imagine how people were thinking back then, the Japanese were the enemy. It's perfectly natural to kill the enemy; you want to kill as many as you can. We had already totally bombed out, firebombed, 66 other cities in Japan and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. So another bomb and another 100,000 civilians was not a big deal for us at that time.
And I think we had gone to all the trouble to make this incredible new device, and the people who did that really wanted to use it and see what it would do. And they saved Hiroshima, they protected Hiroshima from any other bombing so they could really see what happened as a result of the bomb. They saved Hiroshima for an experiment.
It was totally unnecessary to win the war. Japan was defeated, had no ability to fight back, was running out of everything. We had them totally embargoed. There was no need to invade. There was no need to lose a million people in an invasion of Japan. All of that is myth that grew up around the bombing because we didn't want to feel we had killed 100,000 people for no reason.
But even after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan still waited several days to surrender, and in that interval there was no apparent intention to capitulate. Weren't the atomic bombings a cauterization of the war?
A means of burning the war to an end? I think you can look at it that way. And I suspect that it did cause the war to end a little earlier. But before we even used the bomb we could have ended the war two or three months earlier if we had just agreed to let them keep their emperor. That's all we would have had to do, and they would have surrendered months earlier.
And we could have just waited. There were six guys who were deciding whether to fight or whether to surrender. Three were on one side and three were on the other side and that had been going on for a long time. And then the emperor stepped in partly because of the bombing and partly because Russia came in on the Allied side on August 8. There is considerable documentary evidence that the Russians' coming in had a bigger effect than the bombings. Already Japan had lost 66 cities. Now they had lost 68. So what? It was not a big deal.
I understand you are planning a tour of the United States — each state, two locations — to take the Hiroshima exhibit there before . . .
We're going to do 101 exhibitions, but it's not that we're taking one exhibition, or even one of the major exhibitions to all these 101 locations.
What we're doing is sending out our poster exhibitions plus some CDs and DVDs. And at least for 50 percent of them, we're hoping to send an A-bomb survivor to the opening ceremony or an associated event.
It sounds like a pretty ambitious project. I did note that it seems to be planned ahead of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
That is accurate. We really want to get as much play as possible in the American media for nuclear weapons, and right now we are trying to figure out how we can, with very little money, be able to do a PR or media campaign using newspapers or community radio. But what we're trying to do is make nuclear weapons an issue for the American public as they look to the elections.
We're very disturbed right now, very concerned, because all of the leading candidates for president . . . have said that they are going to keep the nuclear option on the table. In other words, they are considering using nuclear weapons against Iran. In order to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, they will use one. And that is something we want the United States to think again about. [In fact last week, subsequent to this interview, it was reported that U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, appeared to condemn the use of nuclear weapons.]
In 2003, reports showed the Bush administration pushing ahead with a new generation of weapons called mini-nukes.
The indications are that they are lowering the threshold. They're trying to make little nuclear weapons that can be used, and they are talking about them as if they could be used. They are making plans to use them to take out hardened bunkers in Iran and that sort of thing. The idea of using small nuclear weapons, or any kind of nuclear weapon, anywhere, is just anathema to Hiroshima and to the Peace Culture Foundation.
Let me ask you about Japan's clear statement on reliance on nuclear power for its energy needs. Do you have a view on this?
That is a really hard question because we are not allowed even . . . I really cannot have an opinion about nuclear power. We are against nuclear weapons and we officially do not have a position on nuclear power.
Can you explain why there is no position on nuclear power?
My belief is that it would probably be because there would be so much economic weight on that side that we cannot afford to fight that fight.
Do you feel that Article 9 should be kept intact, in both its key clauses? The alternative most commonly stated is to keep the article forever rejecting war as a means of solving international disputes, while being more flexible in the matter of maintaining a military.
I am working here for the Peace Culture Foundation, which is trying to promote a world that has no need for the military. I do believe that any kind of move in that direction would be a step backward — a step backward for Japan and for the world.
In general, people have been very open and positive to Japan. I'm not just talking about peace people; I'm talking about people in the economic community. People have had their arms open to Japan and one of the factors in that openness is that Japan is perceived as a peaceful nation and this peace constitution is part of it.
So if they eliminate Article 9 and start sending their Self-Defense Forces around the world, they are going to be associated with one side in the war on terror.
They are going to lose their position as conciliators and mediators working for peace. They will be seen as protagonists, allied with the United States.
What is your top priority?
The overall goal that we're all pursuing is, No. 1, to prevent any nuclear weapon from being used in Iran or Syria or Afghanistan in the next few years, and to get rid of all nuclear weapons by 2020. Human beings really are standing at a crossroads, deciding right now in the next two or three years whether we're going to eliminate nuclear weapons or let everyone have one.
If we let everyone have one, one will be used. There will definitely be some idiot who will use one someday. And if everyone has one, it won't stop with one.
Our economy will just plummet if any major city gets taken out because of all of the economic fallout from losing that city, plus the economic slowdown that will happen when all of the defense mechanisms are thrown into high gear and circulation of goods and people slows down.
In any case, it doesn't take a genius to know that if we start throwing nuclear weapons around, we're all in a lot of trouble. That is what we're trying to prevent, and we're pushing hard to build an international movement to get rid of nuclear weapons. The real block to that is the United States. Everyone else will do it if the U.S. does. It's the U.S. that's keeping it from happening.
The last vote [in the U.N., on the Renewed Determination toward the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons] was 169-3, last October, in the first committee. Then, 169 voted to get rid of nuclear weapons and three voted to keep them. Those were the U.S., India and North Korea. The North Koreans are already going to get rid of them and we could easily buy them off. The Indians long ago said they will get rid of their nuclear weapons any time America gets rid of theirs.
America, which is being the big superpower, is trying to hang on to that position. Maybe somebody is thinking nuclear weapons are going to help with that. The rest of the world is thinking, "No, we have to keep the war on terror from becoming nuclear." That's the kind of thing we're working on at the U.N. level.
What I really want is for Japan to say very clearly to the United States, maybe openly or maybe in a back room somewhere, that you may not use nuclear weapons. If Japan, China and Germany were to say that to America, America could not ignore that message. Those are the three countries that own most of America these days.
平成１９年５月３１日付中国新聞朝刊記事に関する理事長の基本的な考え方
http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/images/riji.html
(財)広島平和文化センター理事長のスティーブン・ロイド・リーパーです。5月31日の中国新聞朝刊や中国新聞オンラインに掲載された「原爆資料館展示見直し」の記事で、私の意見として紹介された「原爆投下を『日本の植民地支配から解放した』と肯定する考えが根強いアジアの声に触れながら議論を深め、多民族が共感、納得できる施設にしたい」という部分について、広島への原爆投下を容認しているのではないかとのご意見を数多くいただきましたので、この問題に関する私の基本的な考えを説明したいと思います。
核兵器は一瞬にして大量破壊・無差別殺戮を引き起こす非人道的な兵器であり、いかなる理由があっても、その使用を正当化できるものではありません。この考えは、広島市及び(財)広島平和文化センターの基本スタンスであり、これからも決して揺らぐものではないことを最初に申し上げておきたいと思います。
私は、昭和60年（1985年）から広島市を拠点として、核兵器廃絶へ向けて積極的に活動してきました。核兵器は人類とは絶対に共存し得ないものであり、原爆の投下を正当化する考え方は言語道断です。62年前、ヒロシマで何が起ったのかを紛れもない事実として、きちんと伝えていきたいと考えています。
さて、この記事の背景となった広島平和記念資料館の展示更新についてですが、同資料館は、建設から51年が経過し、老朽化などに対応した建物の整備、被爆体験を次世代に分かりやすく伝えるための展示の更新などが必要になっており、本年1月に「広島平和記念資料館更新計画」を策定し、建物整備や展示更新の今後のあり方を方向付けました。今年度と来年度は、これを具体化し実施に移すため、より詳細な「広島平和記念資料館展示整備等基本計画」を策定することとしており、策定に当たっては、有識者等からなる検討委員会の設置や市民意見の募集を予定しています。
今回、インタビューの中で私が伝えたかったのは、核兵器については様々な意見を持つ人がいますが、どのような考えの人にも、原爆の非人道性を理解してもらう必要があるということです。そして、それを理解してもらうには、どのような展示が良いのかということについて、幅広く意見を聞きたいということなのです。その方法の一つとして、例えばアジア出身の方からも意見を聴取してはどうかという現時点での私の案を述べました。新聞記事では､あたかもアジア出身の委員を起用することが方針として決まっているかのように読み取れますが、そのような事実はなく、検討委員会の構成も含めて、委員の人選や委員以外からの意見聴取の方法などについては、今後、具体的に検討していくことになります。
核兵器を巡っては様々な意見があり、その中には中国新聞の記事にあるように、「原爆投下を『日本の植民地支配から解放した』と肯定する考え」もあります。これは、このような考え方がアジアにはあるという事実を指摘したのであり、私がこの考え方を肯定している訳ではありません。逆に、私はこのような考え方を持っている人たちにも原爆が非人道的なものであるということ、そして、決して使用されてはならず、地球上から廃絶しなければならないものであるということを理解してもらうために何ができるのかを考え、実行する必要があると伝えたかったのです。
具体的な方法として、例えば、「原爆投下を『日本の植民地支配から解放した』と肯定する考え」が根強いアジアの人たちの考え方の根拠や背景等についての知識を持ち、かつ、一日も早く核兵器を廃絶すべきであることを主張する私たちの考え方に賛同しているアジアの人たちの意見を聞くことが考えられます。その結果として考え方の異なる人々にも共感、納得してもらえる施設にするための参考になるのではないか、と思っています。
このような私の基本的な考えが、今回の報道で十分に伝わらなかったことについては、非常に残念であり、ご心配をお掛けしたことを申し訳なく思っています。
私は、北朝鮮の核武装などのニュースを聞くたびに、いつ、どこで核兵器が使用されるか分からないという大変強い危機感を抱いています。
当センターが事務局を務める平和市長会議は、2020年までに核兵器廃絶を目指す「2020ビジョン」に取り組んでいます。核保有国を含む全ての国が、核兵器廃絶に向けて誠実に努力すべきであることを粘り強く訴え続けていかなければならないと決意を新たにしています。
今後とも、当センターの運営につきまして、皆様のご理解、ご協力を賜りますよう、よろしくお願い申し上げます。
