Come Together to Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Please Join Us in Clock Tower Park by the Collateral Damage Statue for A Vigil and Commemoration for the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki US Nuclear Bombings.

We Stand with Nuclear Survivors for Global Justice

71 years ago, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was then and is now no excuse for using weapons of mass destruction against civilian populations. Nonetheless our government, up to and including the Obama Administration, has refused to offer the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki an apology. This was highlighted by President Obama's recent visit to Hiroshima where once again the US while bemoaning the carnage produced by its own actions refused to accept responsibility for them.

We will assemble to commemorate those awful events and declare that the actions of our government were reprehensible and inexcusable. We will offer our profound apologies to the people of Japan and the world. But our apology will have no meaning unless we rededicate ourselves to the proposition that those barbarous acts will never occur again.

The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) at their 84th annual meeting from June 24-27, 2016 in Indianapolis endorsed the following action program:

1. Pursue new diplomatic initiatives to lower tensions with Russia and China and to dramatically reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles.

2. Convene a Nuclear Disarmament Summit, multilateral negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons as required by the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

3. Reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement, and to redirect those funds to address the urgent needs of cities and rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

4. Raise public awareness of the humanitarian impacts and financial costs of nuclear weapons, the growing dangers of wars among nuclear-armed states, and the urgent need for good faith U.S. participation in negotiating the global elimination of nuclear weapons

This action program should be endorsed, adopted and promoted by progressive people throughout the country.

We will begin the evening at 6 PM with an invocation. This will be followed by music and speakers. At 7 PM we will will form a circle, light candles and hold a moment of silence, prayer and meditation, afterwards participants can offer short personal reflections, songs or poems if they so wish. The main speaker, from the faith community, will follow. Afterwards those who wish can break into smaller groups to discuss what must be done to build a world without nuclear weapons and without war.

Please bring symbols for peace, flowers, bells, candles in containers, and chairs.

No to war preparations, No to the modernization of our nuclear arsenal, No to the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. Yes to peace and reconciliation, Yes to sustainable human development.

Stand with Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors), Pacific Islanders and others harmed by nuclear technology.

This event is part of the global "Chain Reaction: Breaking Free from Nuclear Weapons."

Sponsored by the Santa Cruz Chapter of the United Nations Association. Co-sponsors TBA.

For more information, contact Dennis Etler at deetler @ gmail.com