Stonewalk Japan 2005 - Press Article

Thursday, August 4, 2005 at 17:37 JST

A group of bereaved relatives of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, as well as peace activists and volunteers from Japan and abroad, ended their "stone walk" in Hiroshima on Thursday after a pilgrimage on which they carried a 1-ton stone commemorating all unknown civilians killed in wars, including atomic-bomb victims.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 respectively.

"We decided to have the stone walk in Japan on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings. The stone is special for the message of peace it brings," said Dot Walsh, 63, of the Peace Abbey, one of two main groups organizing the peace march.

It is the first time a "stone walk" -- a pilgrimage honoring civilian war casualties -- has been staged in Japan since the first one in the United States in 1999. So far, four walks have been organized in the United States, Britain and Ireland.

Margo Roman, 52, who has taken part in past "stone walks," said she feels gripped by emotion when she thinks about the instantaneous loss of civilian lives in Hiroshima.

"In a war, everybody loses. Civilian and military families are destroyed," said Roman, whose grandfather withdrew from his family after his 19-year-old son was killed by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The volunteers carried the stone -- on which the words, "Unknown Civilians Killed In War," are engraved -- mounted on a cart for a 600-kilometer trek from its starting point in Nagasaki on July 2 to Hiroshima.

Before the group, amounting to around 50 people, started their last walk at 11:25 a.m. from a chapel in Hiroshima to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, some spoke of their hopes for peace.

Laura Smoot, 23, said the stone walk reminded her that there is still hope for peace and that people could still gather and act together for such a purpose.

Another young participant, Fusa Maekawa, a 25-year-old photographer, said she had never been directly affected by war, but in taking part here felt connected with people who had lost their loved ones due to acts of war.

Pulling the cart, the group walked through Saga, Fukuoka and Yamaguchi prefectures before wrapping up the journey in a closing ceremony Thursday afternoon at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

"It is just amazing, so powerful that we have made it through the heat and I am now standing in front of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Through my years of being in the antinuclear movement, I have always dreamed of coming here," Roman said.

Andrea LeBlanc of the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an advocacy group founded by bereaved family members of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, smiled as she was surrounded by reporters at the head of the cart, saying she felt as if the journey had just started.

Because of a foot injury, LeBlanc sat in a box at the front of the wagon during the walk, as other participants hauled the cart along by handles fixed to the front.

In a speech at the closing ceremony, LeBlanc, who lost her husband in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, urged people to take on the "enormous responsibility to remember the atomic bombings and even greater responsibility to the future generation" to prevent such tragic events from recurring.

Walsh called on Japan and the world to "honor Article 9" referring to the war-renouncing clause of the Japanese Constitution.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has released a draft to revise the post-war Constitution, including a new Article 9 that would allow Japan to formally possess armed forces, which are banned under the current Article 9.

Isao Ebine, Hiroshima representative for Stonewalk, vowed before the stone to work toward dialogue with people on the Korean Peninsula, in China and other parts of Asia to overcome the painful memories of Japan's part in their history.

The stone is expected to be kept at a church in Hiroshima.

Peace Abbey, a multi-faith retreat center, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows are the core groups of the "stone walk" movement. Peaceful Tomorrows joined last year.

The stone walk was conceived by Peace Abbey founder and activist Lewis Randa, who thought of using this kind of walk to remind people of the true costs of war.