Representatives of various groups have gathered at an interfaith event in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to call for nuclear disarmament worldwide. Source: OSV News.
Hosted by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe on Sunday, the group observed the 80th anniversary of the first atomic bomb test that took place in south-central New Mexico by highlighting concerns over the devastating effects and mass destruction wrought by nuclear weapons.
The massive explosion on July 16, 1945, the culmination of the codenamed “Trinity” project, in White Sands National Park, could be felt within a 257-kilometre radius, and covered an area populated by about 500,000 mostly Latino and Native American residents.
The local population, according to documentarians and witnesses who experienced the test, did not receive prior warnings about the detrimental health effects of the nuclear explosion that took place just a few kilometres from their homes.
The earliest reported harmful effects were an increase in infant deaths months after the test, and then a surge in cancer cases, among other serious health issues that residents say continue to plague the local population.
Speakers at the interfaith observance, titled “80 Years and Still Waiting A World Without Nuclear Weapons”, included members of Soka Gakkai International, a Japan-based Buddhist group focused on promoting peace through “key actions” such as nuclear disarmament; Students for Nuclear Disarmament, a youth awareness campaign on the harms of nuclear weapons at college campuses across the US; and the head of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, who drew attention to the US Government’s nearly $2 trillion nuclear weapons modernisation plan.
Songs of peace and prayers from Christian and Jewish groups were interspersed with the talks.
The executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Melissa Parke, is former federal Labor MP for Fremantle, in Western Australia.
Ms Parke said she hoped to see “truth telling” on the part of the US Government regarding the effects of the Trinity test and other nuclear weapons’ development as well as an apology and “recognition that nuclear weapons do not provide national security.”
“The case for disarmament is not utopian,” Ms Parke said.
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80 years after ‘Trinity,’ Catholic-hosted gathering calls to abolish nuclear weapons (By Simone Orendain, OSV News)
