The Daily Yomiuri

Monument hauled in name of peace

Hiroko Ihara / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

About 20 people set off from Nagasaki on foot Saturday pulling a carriage carrying a 700-kilogram monument in an event called Stonewalk Japan 2005 that will end in Hiroshima. The monument honors victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Stonewalk was inaugurated in 1999 by The Peace Abbey, a U.S. peace organization, to promote nonviolence. This year's event was organized by members of that organization and Peaceful Tomorrows, another U.S. group set up by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing.

Before Saturday's departure, a ceremony was held near the cenotaph at the hypocenter of the explosion in Nagasaki. About 200 people prayed silently at 11:02 a.m., the time the city was devastated by an atomic bomb.

More than 100 people followed behind the carriage. Participants in the event will pull the carriage in turns along a 600-kilometer route through Nagasaki, Saga, Fukuoka, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures.

The event will end at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Aug. 4. The organizing committee of each prefecture is inviting people to take part in the event.

Participants in last year's Stonewalk hauled the stone from Boston to New York to honor victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. It bears an inscription that reads, "Unknown Civilians Killed in War."

Andrea LeBlanc, a member of Peaceful Tomorrows, said at the launch ceremony, "I hope young people will learn to solve problems through nonviolent ways."

Indeed, many of the walkers Saturday were students who had responded to an invitation by Tomoko Maekawa, a local university teacher who represents the Nagasaki organizing committee.

Masahito Hirose, a noted peace activist and survivor of the atomic bombing, said, "I hope participants will enjoy the event and also think on their own about its meaning while walking."

(Jul. 3, 2005)