People's Democracy

HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI DAY

CITU to Collect Five Million Signatures for Disarmament

ON August 6, through its vice president, Raghunath Singh, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) conveyed to the people of Japan its solidarity with the families of victims of atom bomb dropped in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and with those who are still suffering from various diseases and after-effects caused by the atomic radiation. On behalf of the peace loving and justice loving people of India and of the CITU, Raghunath Singh attended the World Conference against A & H Bombs 2009 and the Hiroshima Day Rally.

The CITU was one of the organisations that were invited to join the two events mentioned above.

The CITU also conveyed warm and revolutionary greetings to the organisers of the conference and to the people of Japan who have been upholding the banner of world peace and struggling and marching forward for a nuclear weapons free world for the last 64 years. It said the Left parties, the working class and the peace loving people of India have been observing August 6 and 9 every year as the International Peace Days all over the country. On this occasion, they mobilise thousands of people in defence of world peace and pay homage to the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The people of India have been demanding total ban on nuclear tests and total elimination of the atom and hydrogen bombs as well as other weapons of mass     destruction.

Referring to the imperialist depredations before and since 1945 in various parts of the world, including Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Raghunath Singh welcomed the assurances and statements recently given by the US president, Barak Obama, from Prague regarding peace. But he also conveyed the CITU�s firm opinion that we must take these statements with a pinch of salt. Instead, our main reliance must be on forging mass movements in order to safeguard and strengthen world peace. On this occasion, the speaker informed the audience about the CITU�s pledge to further intensify and widen the peace movement in India and also to collect five million signatures as a part of the peace movement which was launched from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the run-up to the NPT review reference next year.

Raghunath Singh told the conference audience that the CITU and the Left parties of India have been in the forefront to oppose the evil designs of imperialist powers to sabotage the peace movements in the world. They are also vehemently opposed to the nuclear deal signed by the government of India with the USA. They are of the firm opinion that the wars are a byproduct of the exploitation of nation by nation and of man by man, and that is also why they are for an exploitation free world. We must always keep in mind that our struggle for world peace, for a nuclear weapons free world and for total disarmament cannot be divorced from our political struggle against imperialism headed by the US. At the same time, we must also not forget the role played by the former USSR in defence of world peace. It was the USSR which did not allow imperialist powers to disturb peace in the world and which extended support to the liberations movements and then the peace movements all over the world. It is after the USSR�s disintegration that the US and its NATO allies became more aggressive, invaded Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and are imposing their unjust economic order on other countries, especially the developing ones. The US is also supporting Israel which is killing the innocent people of Palestine. It is also moving the earth and heaven to get the CTBT signed by India and other states. The game plan of the imperialist countries is that their monopoly of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction must remain intact. We, however, cannot allow this game to succeed.

At yet another event at Nagasaki, on August 7, Raghunath Singh touched the theme of Indo-Pakistan relations, which are at present a cause of concern. He said both India and Pakistan are now nuclear weapons possessing countries, and are in the race for achieving superiority in this area. But the CITU and all other peace loving organisations and individuals have never succumbed to the feelings of narrow nationalism and chauvinistic feelings which the ruling classes of these two countries evoked in order to justify their nuclear jingoism. We know that if ever India drops an atom bomb on Lahore, it will also ruin the neighbouring Indian city of India Amritsar; and the same may be said of Pakistan. The CITU always keeps in view the principles of proletarian internationalism, the same principles which Lenin followed during the First World War, while fighting for a nuclear weapons free world.

The speaker demanded that the US government must apologise not only for the heinous crime it committed by dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also for killing lakhs of innocent people in of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Above all the US government will have to apologise for making the world unsafe by storing huge stockpiles of deadly nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction, and also for trying to militarise the outer space. It is known to the whole world that despite its successive shameful defeats in the UN on the issue of economic sanctions against Cuba, the US has never cared for the world opinion and for the UN itself. For all these and many more reasons, the CITU representative categorically said, US imperialism has to be held answerable to the peace and justice loving people of the world.