The Jeju Peace Institute Today
Bong-Jun Ko
The Jeju Peace Institute (JPI) aims to play a leading role indeveloping networks among experts engaged in Northeast Asian
cooperation and world peace. Dr. Bong-Jun Ko of JPI introduces
the institute’s history, profile, organization and activities.

Background
In January 2005, the Korean government designated Jeju as an
Island of World Peace. The central idea was to make Jeju aninternational peace center in Northeast Asia along the lines ofGeneva in Europe. This led to the formation of the International
Peace Foundation and its working entity, JPI, which were launchedin March 2006 as non-profit organizations. While JPI is actually anNGO, it is fully sponsored by both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and Trade and the Jeju Provincial Government.

Objective
The objective of JPI is two-fold: first, it is to elaborate theprospects for Northeast Asian security cooperation, the economic
integration of Northeast Asia, and the consolidation of peace on
the Korean Peninsula; second, it is to promote peace dialogue,
which will contribute towards peace-building in Northeast Asiaand throughout the entire world in various capacities.

MissionAs an independent non-profit research institution, JPI isdeveloping and supporting comprehensive research programs,international conferences and educational outreach activities inorder to promote peace and prosperity throughout the region andbeyond.

Organization
For the sake of efficiency, JPI maintains a small staff made up of
experts in their respective fields. Currently, under the firstpresident Ambassador Tae-Kyu Han, JPI has two main functioning
pillars: in the research department, four Ph.D scholars and twoother researchers are actively working. The interests and expertiseof these researchers vary, but they share a common understandingthat the essential goal of JPI is to contribute towards creating an
East Asian peace community. The second pillar consists of theplanning and coordination department and the secretariat. The

seven members of staff in these departments are fully supportiveof the research activities of JPI.

Major functions
In order to fulfill the goal mentioned above, JPI performs thefollowing functions: research, the holding of conferences,
networking, providing outreach activities and publishing.
1. Research
JPI is currently conducting two main research projects. The firstproject is to examine theoretically possible and practicable ways of
institutionalizing multilateral security cooperation in East Asia. Of
course, by security this does not mean that we simply focus on
traditional security issues. We are open to a wide variety of issues
and topics. The official declaration of the 4th Jeju Peace Forum in2007 specifically mentioned the necessity for strengthening
security in Northeast Asia through the creation of the Jeju Process.
As a step towards carrying through the Jeju Process, JPI devotes
itself to addressing practical ideas for institutionalizing peace andsecurity in Northeast Asia.
The other project is to construct a Peace Index in Northeast
Asia. Firstly, we scrutinize interstate disputes which appear on thenews. Then, by way of an event counting method, we accumulate
data representing the degree of disputes between the two countries
over time. We use this index to analyze the foreign policy behaviorof a state towards other countries with the help of statisticalanalysis.
In addition to these two projects, JPI’s four research fellows
are carrying out individual research in accordance with their own
research interests. Their topics have developed year by year. The
topics for the year 2009 are the following: the soft power index
and Korean foreign policy; strategies for effective communicationof Northern policy in South Korea; arms reduction, nonproliferation and East Asian multilateralism; multilateralism andeconomic integration in East Asia.
2. Conferences and forums
JPI hosts the biannual Jeju Peace Forum, one of the mostprestigious international conferences held in Korea. Since it was
launched in 2001 as a forum for multilateral cooperation in theregion to promote common peace and prosperity in Northeast Asiaand on the Korean Peninsula, the Jeju Peace Forum has establisheditself as an important regional event by generating further

Contents
The Jeju Peace Institute Today by Bong-Jun Ko …………… 1−2
The Evolving Political Situation in Thailand ……………………… 3＜Reflection from Hiroshima＞ Vol. 11 ……………………… 4−5
Hiroshima through the Eyes of Children’s Literature
Writer Masamoto Nasu

From Conventional National Defense to a Locality-Oriented
Peace Guarantee: Three Keys towards its Realization ………… 6
New Publication from HPI ………………………………………… 7
Diary ……………………………………………………………… 8

Visit HPI’s website at http://serv.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/English/index.htm

1international consensus on how to achieve peace and prosperity inNortheast Asia. Themes of the previous forums in June 2001,
November 2003 and June 2005 focused mainly on peace andprosperity in Northeast Asia. However, at the 4th Jeju Peace
Forum in June 2007 there were discussions about applying
European experiences to the problems of peace and prosperity inNortheast Asia, exploring the issue from political, security andeconomic viewpoints. Detailed information of the 5th Jeju Peace
Forum is written below.
JPI also holds academic conferences and policy forums on
distinctive themes with diverse participants in order to promote theexchange of ideas related to multilateral dialogue and cooperation
for peace.
3. Networking
In order to create a research network with peace research
institutions around the world, including the Hiroshima Peace
Institute and other prominent institutions such as SIPRI, PRIO and
USIP, JPI seeks to cooperate with these institutions for researchand the exchange of ideas. In addition, JPI is working towards
becoming a recognized venue for the holding of peace dialogue.
To that end, JPI hosts eminent scholars, experts, and renowned
figures from around the world to hear their opinions on a variety of
topics.
4. Outreach education programs
In order to contribute towards strengthening and spreading aculture of peace and nurturing future workers for peace, JPI
operates various peace education programs for students.
Furthermore, JPI is currently completing a feasibility study on
hosting a CIFAL center in Jeju, Korea. If it is decided to continue
with this project, another CIFAL center concentrating on
preserving natural heritage will be established in Jeju. CIFAL is aninternational training center for local authorities and local actors
which is affiliated to UNITAR.
5. Publication
To secure a professional audience, JPI publishes research reports,
books and periodicals containing analyses on academic and topicalpending issues.

human security and other relevant concerns at home and abroad —alongside issues of traditional military security.
In addition, throughout the forum, discussions will be held ona sustainable vision for mutual benefit in East Asia, and joint
efforts towards multilateral economic cooperation to address theworld financial crisis. Essential issues will also be discussed
regarding the correlation between an expansion of Official
Development Assistance (ODA) and the economic development of
East Asia, and also East Asian cooperation for sustainable
development (“green growth”).
A variety of comprehensive subjects will be put forward toclosely examine ways to achieve mutual benefit and common
prosperity in East Asia through a broad spectrum of joint
international efforts. In particular, the 5th Jeju Peace Forum willproceed in the form of “Forums in Condominium” in order todiscuss various issues more efficiently under the grand theme of
the forum. Diverse sessions on security, economy, history andinternational cooperation will be conducted independently but inclose cooperation with the participating institution.
Through joint efforts, it is hoped that the 5th Forum will lay
down a new milestone for a futuristic vision for mutual benefits
and common prosperity by exploring various aspects in East Asia.
The 5th Jeju Peace Forum will consist of plenary sessions,round-tables, concurrent functional panels dealing with specificissues of regional importance, and Town Hall meetings.
¡

Plenary sessions
The plenary sessions will consist of a world leaders’ session, adefense and foreign ministers’ session, a business leaders’session, and a session on a new national vision for Korea. The
objective of the plenary sessions, in which all participants willtake part, is to bring decision-makers from the security anddiplomacy sectors, business leaders, and experts together toengage in discussions on the topics at hand, exploring the nearterm challenges and prospects for the future.

¡

Round-tables
The purpose of the round-tables is to facilitate an exchange ofviews on specific topics among key regional and international
practitioners of similar professions.
Leaders from the fields of politics, foreign affairs anddomestic and foreign media will be invited to each panel aspresenters or discussants.

¡

Functional panels
The objective of concurrent functional panels is to explore andformulate new strategies and tangible solutions for regional
cooperation and examine specific areas and issues of regional
importance. Functional panels will consist of 12 panels in total:
three focusing on security, four on the economy, two on history,
two on international cooperation, and one on Jeju. Experts fromacademia, government and business will come together todiscuss practical issues in depth — national identity andconflicts, pressing issues regarding Northeast Asian conflicts,
multilateral economic cooperation in East Asia, environmental
policy, current issues and prospects for the world automobile
industry, economic development and peace in Jeju — and draw
out political implications. Each session will have paper
presentations on the topic in question, which will be followedby open discussions.

¡

Town Hall meetings
These will be arranged in two sessions entitled “Island forWorld Peace” and “Jeju Global Education City,” in order topromote local development in Jeju which will contribute toputting forward the vision and challenge of Jeju in the future.

The fifth Jeju Peace ForumOne of the features that makes JPI unique is the aforementioned
Jeju Peace Forum. The 4th Forum was organized by JPI for the
first time in June 2007 and was completed successfully. The 5th
Jeju Peace Forum will be convened on August 11-13, 2009.
The main theme of the 5th Jeju Peace Forum is “Shaping
New Regional Governance in East Asia: A Common Vision for
Mutual Benefits and Common Prosperity.” Under this main theme,
the issue of how East Asia will evolve to generate common
prosperity and mutual benefit in the 21st century will be discussed.
It is expected that lively discussions will take place between world
leaders and key figures in the fields of security, diplomacy,
economics, media and academia from around the world.
Of course, a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue on the
Korean Peninsula will be a starting point for common prosperity
and mutual benefit in the region, especially in East Asia wheresecurity matters such as the North Korean nuclear issue have long
been interrelated. In connection with this issue, the 5th Jeju Peace
Forum purports to explore practical ways to proceed with the Jeju
Process declared at the conclusion of the 4th Jeju Peace Forum.
This aims to institutionalize regional peace and common
prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia throughenhancing mutual understanding and in-depth discussions amongexperts regarding how the six-party talks on the North Korean
nuclear issue can develop. In addition, the peace issue will be
extensively examined in terms of non-traditional security matters— including soft power, Northeast Asia’s historical conflicts,
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HIROSHIMA RESEARCH NEWS Vol.12 No.1, July 2009

（Associate research fellow at JPI）

The Evolving Political Situation in Thailand
Narayanan Ganesan

Thailand has undergone many significant politicalchanges in the past few years. The political situation in
the country initially appeared to be stable at the turn ofthe century when telecommunications tycoon Thaksin
Shinawatra won a convincing victory in the 2001
election. Although he did not have a majority to form thegovernment at that time, he was able to persuade anumber of smaller political parties to join a coalition
government led by his own party, Thai Rak Thai (Thais
Love Thai). His political party was registered in 1998
shortly after the Asian Financial Crisis that devastatedthe Thai economy in 1997. Riding on a wave of
nationalist sentiment and populist policies that benefitted
the rural poor, Thaksin was able to sweep aside mucholder and established parties. His popularity and politicalpower appeared unstoppable when he won a second termof office in 2005. In that election, his party secured atotal of 377 seats in the 500-seat Thai parliament. The
representatives of his party were known for theirdiscipline although there were four major factions within
the party — a regular feature of Thai politics. Thaksin’s
other strengths included an availability of resources
which was totally disproportionate to that of his political
rivals, an uncanny ability to exercise patronage andsecure clientelist loyalties from faction leaders, andpolitical charisma that the Thais refer to as barami.
Despite his political power and prowess, there werewidespread murmurs of unhappiness with his
government. Many regarded his style of conducting
business as impersonal and authoritarian. Influential
academics and economists accused Thaksin ofmanipulating the national agenda in order to profit frompublic policies. The process itself came to be labeled“policy corruption.” Other activities with economic
repercussions that put him in bad light included a 4
billion baht loan to the Myanmar government throughthe Export-Import Bank of Thailand fortelecommunication equipment from which the company
he founded benefitted. However, the transaction thateventually led to the unraveling of Thaksin and his
power was the sale of his family’s entire share of Shin
Corporation — a telecommunications company hefounded — to the Singapore government holding
company Temasek. The sale was pursed such that his
family members avoided paying any taxes on the US$1.8
billion transaction. In fact, it was this deal in early 2006
that was the immediate trigger behind street protests
which eventually led to his downfall. The military staged
a coup against him in September 2006, and the courts
also annulled his third 2006 election victory anddisbanded his party due to electoral irregularities.
Additionally, 111 senior party members were barredfrom holding public office for five years.

Other negative developments attributed to Thaksin included
the extra-judicial killing of some 2,000 persons accused of being
drug traffickers and an extremely hardline policy against the
Muslim insurgency in the south of the country where the policeand military were regularly accused of torture and killings. In
2004, 78 Muslim youths lost their lives when they were piled into
military trucks and transported without proper ventilation on an
occasion when security forces broke up a demonstration. The
Takbai Incident, as this came to be called, revealed an apparent
callous disregard for human life and significantly fuelled theinsurgency that has since claimed more than 3,500 lives. Finally,Thaksin was also seen as undermining the traditional compact
between the military, bureaucracy and monarchy that wieldedsignificant power in the country through an informal network. And
in a country where the King is treated as a semi-god with laws
barring negative comments against the royal family, such behavior
was certainly seen as being unpardonable. The daily street protests
against his government also badly affected businesses and sappedinternational confidence in the country.
After Thaksin’s party was disbanded, his supporters
mobilized and formed the People Power Party which won thesubsequent election in December 2007. Street protests led by the
People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD — yellow shirted toexpress support for the King) accused the new government ofbeing a proxy government of Thaksin and continued its protests.
The protestors even occupied the Government House (parliament)
and the New Bangkok International Airport. The first Prime
Minister to take office during this period, Samak Sundaravej, wasforced to resign shortly after his appointment, as was the second,
Somchai Wongsawat, who was Thaksin’s brother-in-law. In thesecond instance, the courts also disbanded the People Power Party
due once again to electoral irregularities. Following this second
dissolution, a major faction leader from Thaksin’s old party allied
himself with the Democrat Party and allowed the current Prime
Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to form a minority coalition
government.
The current situation is by no means stable. Many observers
regard the legitimacy of the current government as tenuous since
the PAD had succeeded in forcing a stalemated political situation
through the use of illegal tactics. The PAD does not necessarily
command widespread support beyond sections of Bangkok
society, and some of its leaders were previously associated withThaksin. There are also charges that the PAD was tacitly supportedby the “network monarchy.” Additionally, the courts that weredirected by the King to break the impasse are thought to have dealt
with Thaksin and the political parties he inspired rather harshly.
Finally, Thaksin has inspired his own movement of red-shirted
supporters who come from the poorer regions in the north andnortheast of the country in the United Front for Democracy against
Dictatorship (UDD). The situation is therefore far from stable andhas the potential to deteriorate into violence.
Professor at HPIVisit HPI’s website at http://serv.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/English/index.htm

3

＜Reflection from Hiroshima＞ Vol. 11
By Motofumi Asai

Masamoto Nasu

（Interviewed on April 13, 2009）

Hiroshima through the Eyes of Children's
Literature Writer Masamoto Nasu
Masamoto Nasu is a renowned writer of children’s literature withhis masterpiece being the long-running series Zukkoke Sanningumi[The Goofy Trio]. He talks about memories of his father, his perception of the atomic bomb during his childhood and episodes ofworking on his two books, Children of the Paper Crane: The Storyof Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease(M.E. Sharpe, 1991, originally published in Japanese from PHP
Interface, 1984) and HIROSHIMA: A Tragedy Never to Be
Repeated (Fukuinkan Shoten, 1998, originally published inJapanese, 1995).
1. Memories of my father
I lived with my parents and two elder sisters at that time. When theatomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, my father, Shigeyoshi,
who was a teacher at a local girls’ school, was at the Miyuki
Bridge. For the next two weeks, he wandered around the city looking for his students. He later contributed 18 poems to a poem collection entitled Hiroshima (Daini Shobo, 1954) which expressed
his thoughts and feelings at the time. One of those poems is particularly striking to me as you can feel his deep affection towards his
students: The list of the dead, / Finding at last / their names written there, / My heart filled with relief / drowning grief.
I have one unforgettable memory of him. When I was in theeighth grade, he was outraged by me calling the Showa Emperor“Ten-chan” in an overly casual manner. In fact, one of his poemsin the aforementioned poem collection reads, “An old lady
approached / with her back bent / looking outraged, / Then she
screamed / ‘The Emperor deceived me!’” This is the only poemout of the eighteen in which he mentioned the Emperor. He was
not particularly critical about the symbolic monarch. But I remember, when I criticized the Emperor for sending children to the battlefield and my father for supporting that without taking any
responsibility for it, father stood up for the Emperor saying “I only
accepted Japan’s surrender because of the Emperor’s declarationon the radio.” After this little quarrel, however, he said to mymother that I had “grown up” and ever since, he never raised
objections to me and always respected my words and deeds.
He retired from teaching after the war. Probably his feelings
towards his students who were killed by the A-bomb were toostrong to bear, making him decide on retirement. I remember him
working really hard to petition for homage and compensation by
the Japanese government to be paid to his A-bombed students who
were not regarded as eligible because their school was categorized
as a “special” school.
2. Change in my perception of the atomic bomb
I was only three years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima so my memory of that day is rather fragmented. My
mother and I were at home in Kogo at the time (near the present
day Nishi-Hiroshima station), and I was protected by a shutter caseat the veranda and so received only slight injuries. I remember seeing many casualties trudge pass our house looking like puppets
covered in mud. I also saw thieves targeting empty houses immediately after the bombing. In fact, a man dropped by at our house
who seemed to have stolen fruit cans from somewhere. He gave
me one of them, full of mandarins, which I had to blow on to cool
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HIROSHIMA RESEARCH NEWS Vol.12 No.1, July 2009

down to eat. I didn’t feel any particular fright at the atomic bomb,
but I remember feeling frightened by a house that was engulfed byfire across a field.
When I entered Koi Primary School in 1949, my impressionof the atomic bomb was that at best it was “a bomb with colossal
power.” The following year when I was in the second grade, theKorean War broke out. One day, I was on my way home fromschool with an A-bombed friend and thoughtlessly said, “Whydoesn’t the U.S. drop an atomic bomb in Korea?” It goes without
saying that I later felt deep regret for having said that to him.
It was nevertheless a rather common perception in much ofJapanese society that the atomic bomb possessed colossal energy
and there was even a kind of longing for the weapon. The famous
cartoon by Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy, is a typical example of this.
There is a cenotaph at the west end of the Peace Bridge to commemorate A-bombed students of the Hiroshima Girls’ HighSchool. At its center stands a statue of a girl with a box in herarms, and the box has the equation of mass-energy equivalence“E=mc2” on it. It indicates that atomic power could be justified on
the basis that the nuclear era started at the cost of hibakusha (Abomb survivors).
It was when I was in the eighth grade and underwent a medical examination that my perception of the atomic bomb began tochange. A famous hibakusha girl, Sadako Sasaki, was born on
January 7, 1943, while my birthday is June 6, 1942. Under theJapanese education system, we were in the same grade, althoughattending different schools. Sadako was first hospitalized at theHiroshima Red Cross Hospital with leukemia on February 21,
1955, when she was only in the sixth grade. Then in October of thesame year she passed away, having never attended Noborimachi
Junior High School which she started just half a year before. A
friend of mine was struck down with the same illness in August of
the following year when we were in the eighth grade. His loss
struck me with great fear during the two weeks following the medical examination I had to check the effects of the atomic bomb.
Although I was only diagnosed with anemia, it was the first timethat I actually associated the effects of the atomic bomb with myown life. I felt the same fear when my first child was born, who
could have been affected due to my having been A-bombed. I
doubt this fear will ever disappear until the last day of my life.
Nevertheless, I still regarded the atomic bomb as being a“necessary evil.” However, such an understanding finally turned
negative when I was a high school student and read a paper byProfessor Seiji Imahori of Hiroshima University amid the 1960
turmoil over the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. I came to doubt thenecessity of the atomic bombing of Japan and to question whether
it was a war criminal.
When I was a university student, I traveled all the way to thenortheastern region of Japan. This journey made me realize thatpeople outside Hiroshima had misunderstandings about the atomic
bomb. On one occasion, I was in a public bath and a man who happened to be there asked me where I came from. When I replied“Hiroshima,” he jumped out of the bath. If you were in Hiroshima,asking each other “Where were you at the time of the bombing?”
was an ordinary thing, but this wasn’t the case outside Hiroshima.
That was something I came to realize only after I left my home togo to university and met people from other places. I also realized
then that it would be better if I didn’t tell people that I had been Abombed.
3. Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of Sadako
Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb DiseaseIn 1968 my second elder sister asked me if I wanted to join the
Hiroshima Children’s Literature Society and this stimulated myinterest in children’s literature. I made my debut as a writer withthe book Kubinashi Jizo no Takara [Treasure of the Headless Jizo
Statue] in 1972, the work for which I received a Gakken
Children’s Literature Award. I got married in 1977, lost my father
the following year, and then moved to my wife’s hometown, Hofu
in Yamaguchi Prefecture. The year 1978 was a turning point in mylife as it was then that I resolved to make a living as a writer.
When I wrote Children of the Paper Crane: The Story of
Sadako Sasaki and Her Struggle with the A-Bomb Disease, I had
already developed a strong desire to write about the atomic bomb.
However, the direct trigger to begin this work was meeting withthe children’s literature writer Tomiko Inui (1924-2002) in 1982.
When she visited Yamaguchi, she said to me that I should write
something other than works simply for entertainment. It was aninteresting coincidence that around the same time I received anoffer from PHP Interface (a publishing company) to publish a nonfiction work.
During my life I had no direct interaction with Sadako Sasaki,
since, for one thing, she went to Noborimachi Primary School andI went to Koi. When I entered Motomachi High School, there werequite a few people in my year who had been at the same primaryschool as Sadako. A female friend of mine introduced me to about
ten of them. To my surprise, they told me that they were not particularly keen on the project of erecting a monument for Sadako inthe beginning, and that they felt they were used by adults.
So in my book I decided not to depict an “idealized Sadako,”
but rather her real personality with as many facets as I could identify. At first, people only said what “a good girl” she was. But after
conducting many interviews, I uncovered some different views
too. One person confessed to having some jealousy towards thefortune of her family. But this feeling later changed to compassion
as her farther passed away from the same illness as Sadako.
Another interviewee, Kiyo Ohkura, who stayed in the same room
as her at the Red Cross Hospital, did not particularly like Sadako.
But once Ohkura learnt that Sadako knew the seriousness of her
own illness, her feeling towards Sadako changed and the two girls
came to understand each other. Based on these accounts as well asothers, the first half of the book, which depicts Sadako’s life up to
her death in October 1955, describes her real personality in detail.

The second half concerns the work and efforts of Sadako’s
former classmates to erect a monument to commemorate their lostfriend. Some initial ideas for the monument included a mushroomshaped tomb, modeled on the cloud from the atomic bomb. The
idea that was finally adopted was to erect a cenotaph to commemorate all the children killed by the bomb, including Sadako. Thisidea was proposed by Ichiro Kawamoto who, having been Abombed himself and seen the chaos in the city, had determined to
devote the rest of his life to work for the hibakusha. He brought
the idea to Gen’itsu Tanaka, the then Principal of Noborimachi
Junior High School, the school where Sadako would have studied.
Major movements began after the Students’ Group for Peace
Building in Hiroshima was established in January 1956, partly
thanks to the efforts of Tanaka who had been encouraged by positive responses and donations from schools across Japan. The
Group consisted mainly of members of student committees of primary, junior high, and high schools of Hiroshima who themselves
had no direct connection with Sadako. During this process
Sadako’s classmates were unfortunately merely “backstage”
forces, even though they spent most of their time as junior highschool students until the completion of the monument on May 5,
1958. It is no wonder that some of them came to hold negative,
distorted perceptions of the project.
4. HIROSHIMA: A Tragedy Never to Be Repeated
Working on Children of the Paper Crane made me realize just
how ignorant I was about the atomic bombing. One issue, forexample, relates to the use of words like genbakusho andhibakusha (“A-bomb disease” and “A-bomb victims” respectively). These words are now commonly used, but it is not known
when exactly they were first invented. I actually found out that theword genbakusho comes from another word mansei-genshibakudan-sho (literally meaning “chronic atomic bomb-derived disease”) which was used by Dr. Masao Tsuzuki in his paper published in 1954, the year of the Lucky Dragon No.5 Incident. The
first appearance of the other word hibakusha also came at the timeof the incident: a report in The Yomiuri Shimbun read “Kuboyama
Aikichi shi ga hibaku shiteiru” [Aikichi Kuboyama had been
exposed to radiation]. This sort of research made me more eager towrite something through which I could address the tragic event. I
was also motivated by seeing students from other prefectures onschool trips to Hiroshima who perceived the atomic bombing as if
it had been a natural disaster. This made me want to produce somematerial through which students could learn about the bombing
before they visited Hiroshima.
During the writing of HIROSHIMA: A Tragedy Never to Be
Repeated, I thought it necessary to show a complete picture of thebombing, in contrast to episodes of particular individuals whose
experiences and memories were, although of great importance intheir own right, rather limited to a small area where they had beenat the time of bombing. This was the idea I brought to Fukuinkan
Shoten which would later become the publisher of the book. It wasmade possible thanks to the cooperation of many people, one ofwhom was Shigeo Nishimura who contributed drawings and who
had had deep interest in Hiroshima, in addition to the chief editor.
It was lucky that the U.S. had become active in disclosing information at the time so I could also acquire interesting sources fromacross the Pacific. Nishimura’s devotion deserves admiration since
he lived in Hiroshima for a whole year for the purpose of thoroughinformation gathering, which resulted in the drawings that appear
in the publication. From the first instigation of the project, it took
us as long as six years to finally publish it in 1995. Nevertheless,that year was the 50th anniversary of the bombing and so I was
rather happy about the timing. It feels rewarding that the book has
been received quite well with an ever-widening readership.
President of HPIChildren of the Paper Crane and HIROSHIMA
Visit HPI’s website at http://serv.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/English/index.htm

5From Conventional National Defense to a Locality-Oriented Peace Guarantee:
Three Keys towards its Realization
Akihiro Kawakami
Wars and conflicts continue to smolder even today around theworld. People can be sometimes victims, and sometimes
assailants directly or indirectly. However, it is almost certainthat most people want to live their lives without killing otherpeople or being killed. How is it possible to construct real
peace from a citizens’ viewpoint? The following discussion
addresses three points that may be considered when we think
about this issue.
The first point concerns “the actors” who realize peace:that is whether it is exclusively the activities of the national(central) government or of multiple actors such as, forexample, local authorities and NGOs.
In today’s world, a central government can no longer
self-sufficiently or exclusively control issues of diplomacy
and security on its own. With the increasing significance of
local authorities and NGOs, local authorities are no longer thesubcontractors or terminal organizations of the nation (thecentral government). Governmental organizations aresupposed to guarantee human rights. Therefore it can be said
that they guarantee the human rights of the people within theframework of dual organs such as, for example, the national
government and local governments. The relationship between
these actors is not hierarchical but intergovernmental.
At the same time, the scope of activities of local
authorities or citizens is expanding on a global scale. The
raison d’être of local authorities as governmentalorganizations is to guarantee the safety of people’s lives;
therefore, any situation that greatly affects people’s lives is a
top priority for them to solve on their own. It is moredesirable if the citizens and local authorities are the main
actors to guarantee peace, while their actions arecomplemented by the central government, which is further
complemented by international organizations (“the principleof subsidiarity”).
The second point concerns “a means” to guarantee
peace: that is whether it is military or non-military means thatis employed to guarantee peace.
This leads to the following question: “Is the ultimate
object that must be defended the state or the people?” Thecommon understanding in the past regarding this question
was as follows: “War must be won, but if the headquarters is
destroyed, it would mean loss of the war. Therefore, theheadquarters must be saved, even at the cost of the people.” Issuch an understanding which effectively disregards the people
still acceptable today?
Where Japan is concerned, defense by military means
has crucial disadvantages. Japan is a mountainous country
with 75% of its land consisting of mountains and 25％ plains,the latter of which is inhabited by as many as 127 million
people. In such an overcrowded land, there are more than 50
nuclear power plants and 30% of them are concentrated in
Fukui Prefecture, one of the closest prefectures to North
Korea which is regarded by some as a “hypothetical enemy.”
If these plants were attacked with missiles, lethal ash would
fall across a large area from Central to Eastern Japan. At thesame time, due to the scarcity of natural resources within

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HIROSHIMA RESEARCH NEWS Vol.12 No.1, July 2009

Japan, there are a number of oil storage facilities across thecountry. Particularly around the areas of Shirashima inFukuoka Prefecture and Kamigoto in Nagasaki Prefecture(both prefectures located in the Kyushu Region) which areclose to North Korea, there are off-shore storage facilities
containing a total of 40 million kiloliters of oil. In the case of
attacks on the areas, much of the Kyushu Region would beengulfed in fire. This situation means that Japan would be too
vulnerable in a time of war. (For further details, see Shin
Gaidorain to Nichibei Anpo no Henshitsu [The New Defense
Guidelines and Transformation of the U.S.-Japan Security
Alliance] by Shun Oide, 1998, Hokusensha.)
Furthermore, in the era of “urbanized society,”metropolises like Tokyo would be completely paralyzed if
supplies of electricity, food and oil were cut off. Even
anticipation of such a situation might lead to hoarding,restricted sales of products, looting, fire-setting and guerrillaattacks, possibly resulting in millions of refugees. Chaos on
this scale could not be managed, even through the use of
strategic stockpiles or action taken by the police and armed
forces. Particularly in Japan where political, economic andcultural centers are concentrated in Tokyo, attacks on, or any
serious disturbance within, the capital could cause great
catastrophe. (For further details, see Toshigata Shakai to
Bouei Ronsou [Urbanized Society and Controversy over
Security] by Keiichi Matsushita, 2002, Koujin-no-Tomo Sha.)
All these realities should be taken into account whenaddressing key defense issues.
The third and final point concerns “the aim or object ofprotection.” To be more specific, the point of argument iswhether the priority should be defending the state throughnational emergency legislation or protecting the people’s
lives.
Legislation principally focuses on “how to fight in war”;
therefore, its utmost aim would be to restrict people’s
freedom and human rights for the sake of prosecuting a war.
On the contrary, the ideal approach to guaranteeing peace
stipulated in the preamble of the Constitution of Japan is tocreate a network of “trust[...]” with “the peace-loving peoplesof the world” and “to preserve [the peoples’] security andexistence....” For that purpose, we “striv[e] for thepreservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny andslavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from theearth.” We should also actively nurture non-military, civilian
cooperation around the world so that we can “occupy anhonored place in an international society....” The ultimate
goal is therefore to guarantee “the right to live in peace” for“all peoples of the world....”
A locality-oriented peace guarantee prioritizes the livesof the peoples of the world above the existence of individualstates. The first step towards this would be to consolidate
peace at a local level and then expand the scope to include
international cooperation, conflict resolution and war
prevention beyond borders, which is to be achieved
consistently through non-military means.
Assistant professor at HPINEW PUBLICATION
Co-edited by Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young

Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History（New Press, 2009）
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a nongovernment organization based in Gaza City, 1,417 Palestinians
were killed and another 5,300 Palestinians were injured during therecent Israeli attack on Gaza, which lasted 22 days between
December 2008 and January 2009. The majority of these casualties
were civilian victims of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing who did
not support Hamas. Anwar Balousha and his wife, for example,
were among the poorest and most vulnerable refugee families
living in the Gaza Strip when their house was destroyed by an
Israeli bomb on December 30. They lost their five daughters, aged
between 4 and 17, who were asleep together on mattresses in one
bedroom. In an interview with a Guardian journalist, Anwar said,“We are civilians. I don’t belong to any faction, I don’t support
Fatah or Hamas, I am just a Palestinian. They are punishing us all,civilians and militants. What is the guilt of a civilian?” Many other
Palestinians, who escaped serious physical injuries, in particularsmall children, have been psychologically traumatized due to theprolonged bombardment that came from the skies above them.
Near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. forces are
now increasingly deploying UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) tobomb the Taliban. U.S. military authorities claim that their UAVs,
like the Predator, are capable of carrying out precision attacks on
individuals who are identified as enemies. However, here again the
majority of victims of these “precision bombings” have been
civilians and, as a result, anti-American sentiment in this region is
growing rapidly.
In this way, even more than 60 years after the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which instantly killed tensof thousands of civilians and caused various fatal illnesses to many
more people due to radiation, it is still ordinary civilians, and inparticular women, children and old people, who are made thevictims of aerial bombing, despite the persistent claims of
militarists about “precision bombing.”
The aims of our recently published volume, Bombing
Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History, are therefore to question
why military planning in the early twentieth century shifted its
focus from bombing military targets to bombing civilians, how thistheory of “strategic bombing” justifying mass killing originatedand why it was employed as a compelling military strategy for
decades, both before and since the bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki. As Robert Lifton succinctly states in the blurb of ourbook, “the bombing of civilians is one of the greatest scandals of
the twentieth century, culminating in the use of the cruelest
weapons yet devised.” Unfortunately, it is almost certain that thisscandal will remain one of the worst during the first decade of thetwenty-first century as well.
The book, which comprises ten chapters, is a product of a
two-year research project in 2005-2007 funded by the Hiroshima
Peace Institute and the result of cooperative work by 11
researchers from Japan, the U.S., and Australia. It covers thehistory of aerial bombing from the British bombing of Iraq in theearly 1920s to the most recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan,
Iraq and Lebanon, through World War II, the Korean War and theVietnam War. It also examines moral issues and international law
concerning the mass killing of civilians by indiscriminate aerial
attack.
The first chapter, written by myself, demonstrates that during
the interwar years the British considered air strikes in Iraq acheaper, more “humane” way of maintaining imperial control thanconventional ground operations, and interprets this as a prelude to
full scale indiscriminate bombings conducted by both the Allies
and Axis during World War II.
In Chapter 2, Ronald Schaffer explains how strategic
bombing in World War II began with the Nazi Luftwaffe, howrevenge bombing escalated into
indiscriminate bombing by bothsides, and how this consequently
ended with the complete destructionof German cities.
In Chapter 3, Robert Moeller then analyzes how the bombing
war entered German history, memory, and commemorative
practice through critical examinations of recent and controversial
German publications on this topic, such as those by W.G. Sebald
and Jörg Friedrich.
In Chapter 4, Mark Selden analyzes the devastatingconsequences of the U.S. fire bombing of Japanese cities and theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and places them inthe broad context of indiscriminate bombings conducted in Europe
as well as Asia-Pacific by both sides of the antagonized powers
during World War II. Selden concludes that “mass murder ofcivilians has been central to all subsequent U.S. wars.”Through their critical analyses of aerial bombings during
World War II, Ronald Schaffer, Robert Moeller and Mark Seldeneach show that area bombardment was regarded, in particular by
Britain and the U.S., as a shortcut to victory long after evidenceceased to support this belief.
In Chapter 5, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa claims that it was theSoviet invasion rather than the atomic bombs that compelled theJapanese to surrender in the Pacific War by cross-examining vitalarchival documents from Russia, the U.S. and Japan. Hasegawa
also questions why American policymakers rushed to use theatomic bombs, when other alternatives were available.
In Chapter 6, Tetsuo Maeda explains why the JapaneseImperial Forces chose the city of Chongqing as the main target for
their strategic bombing, how they conducted the bombing, whatconsequences it had on the people of that city and how this issue
still remains one of the controversial problems in the relationshipbetween the Chinese and Japanese.
Marilyn Young in Chapter 7 analyzes the theory of “strategic
bombing,” by discussing how the terrorizing and demoralizing of
the enemy nation through airpower has consistently been an
essential ideological component in justifying the U.S. bombings inthe Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghan and Iraq wars. She verifies thisclearly by examining various claims by American political andmilitary leaders in each of these wars.
In Chapter 8, Michael Sherry examines the link between
prophecy and practice of bombing through the history of American
bombing. He also discusses the dissolution of that link late in thetwentieth century, using popular books and films as the main
source of his analysis.
In Chapter 9, Tony Coady discusses some important but
difficult moral issues closely associated with aerial bombing, suchas the “just war” principle, terrorism, collateral damage, incidental
damage and the doctrine of “double effect.”In the final chapter, Tim McCormack and Helen Durham
explain in detail the rules of international humanitarian law andfocus upon recent specific bombing incidents to illustrate thespecific rules and the challenges involved in their application.
As Howard Zinn states in his blurb for the book, readers willfind that “the indiscriminate but also the deliberate killing ofcivilians by aerial bombing” is “one of the greatest horrors ofmodern war.” We, the contributors of this book, sincerely hopethat our cooperative work will enhance the public awareness thatkilling civilians is a crime against humanity, regardless of theasserted military justification, a crime that should be punished on
the basis of Nuremberg and Geneva principles.
Yuki Tanaka, professor at HPIVisit HPI’s website at http://serv.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp/English/index.htm

7March 1 ‒ June 30, 2009
◆Mar. 8 Kazumi Mizumoto participates as a lecturer at a wrap-up
session of a Study Tour to Cambodia organized by Hiroshima
International Center (HIC) and JICA Chugoku, held at HIC.
◆Mar. 11 HPI President Motofumi Asai, Kazumi Mizumoto and
Hiroko Takahashi attend the 4th meeting of the Basic Planning
Committee for the Renewal of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Museum.
◆ Mar. 26 Mizumoto attends as a panelist the inaugural symposiumof the Hiroshima Peace Contribution Platform organized by
Hiroshima Prefecture, HIC and others, held at HIC. ▽Makiko
Takemoto presents paper “Peace Movement and Communist Party(KPD)” at the 19th meeting of the Society for Modern German
History of West Japan held at HPI.
◆ Mar. 27 Mizumoto participates as a regular member in theAdvisory Research Group of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
◆ Mar. 27-30 Yuki Tanaka presents paper “British Air Policing inColonial Countries Between the Two Wars” at the workshop“Violence and Statehood in Europe and Japan” held at the Kobe
Institute of St. Catherine’s College of Oxford University, held in
Kobe.
◆ Apr. 10 Tanaka attends a meeting of the Steering Committee of
the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation andDisarmament (ICNND) Japan NGO Network, held in Tokyo.
◆ Apr. 11 Mizumoto attends the inaugural meeting of the Japan
Association of Disarmament Studies and is appointed a director,
held at the National Center of Sciences, Tokyo.
◆ Apr. 12 Tanaka attends a book review seminar held at the Centerfor the Tokyo Raid and War Damages.
◆ Apr. 16-19 Robert Jacobs presents paper “Target Earth: Cartoon
Images of Globalism in the Ashes of Hiroshima” at the annual
conference of the British Association for American Studies held in
Nottingham, UK.
◆ Apr. 23-25 Narayanan Ganesan presents paper “The Global
Financial Crisis and its Impact on Political Performance andLegitimacy in Singapore” at an international workshop, andattends the Executive Committee Meeting of the Asian Politicaland International Studies Association (APISA) in Danang,
Vietnam.
◆ Apr. 28 Asai attends the Local Liaison Council of the Radiation
Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima.
◆ Apr. 29 Asai gives lecture “Article 9 and Our Daily Life” atmeetings organized respectively by Kogo-Furuta and InokuchiInokuchidai Article 9 Associations (A9A), held in Hiroshima.
◆ Apr. 30 Asai gives lecture “Civil Protection Law and the Self
Defence Forces” at a meeting organized by the Tokachi Bloc ofthe Hokkaido Peace Movement Forum and others, held in
Hokkaido. ▽Mizumoto gives lecture “Hiroshima & Nuclear
Issues” at the California University Program of Meiji Gakuin
University, held at Aster Plaza, Hiroshima.
◆ May 3 Asai gives lecture “The Global Strategy of the Obama
Administration and the Constitution” at a public meetingorganized by A9A Omuta, held in Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture. ▽Akihiro Kawakami gives lecture “The Present Situation of theConstitution in Japan and Our Choices” at a forum organized by
the Society for Protection and Realization of Article 9,” held in
Shizuoka.
◆ May 9 Asai gives lecture “The U.S. Global Strategy and Article
9” at a public meeting organized by the Association of Wakayama
Prefectural Residents for Protection of Article 9, held inWakayama. ▽Mizumoto gives lecture “The Meaning of Studying
the Hiroshima Experience” at the Hiroshima Peace Forumorganized by Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and others, andchairs a group discussion, held at Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Museum.
◆ May 10 Tanaka gives lecture “What Can We Expect from the
Nuclear Policies of ICNND and President Obama?: The Role ofGrass-root Anti-nuclear Movements” at the 2009 annual
symposium of the Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear WeaponsAbolition.
◆ May 11-12 Asai attends “Asia and Peace: Sino-Japanese
Conference” held in Tokyo.
◆ May 13 Mikyoung Kim gives lecture “The Japanese Reactions to
the North Korean Rocket Launch” at the National Strategy

HIROSHIMA RESEARCH NEWS
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8

Institute, Seoul, South Korea.
◆ May 14 Mikyoung Kim gives lecture “Japanese Pacifism” at theGraduate School of International Studies, Korea University inSeoul, South Korea.
◆ May 16 Asai attends as a panelist a symposium organized by theJapan Association for Middle East Studies, held at theInternational Conference Center Hiroshima.
◆ May 26-27 Sung Chull Kim presents paper “Sino-Japanese
Normalization and Japan’s Korea Policy: 1972-1973” at the
symposium “The Koreas between Japan and China” held at the
University of Hong Kong.
◆ May 28 Mikyoung Kim presents paper “South Korean
Construction of North Korean Women’s Identities” at theinternational conference organized by the Hanns Seidel
Foundation and the Institute of Peace and Unification Studies ofSeoul National University, held in Seoul, South Korea.
◆ May 28-31 Jacobs presents paper “Neighbors as Enemies:
Narratives of Community Violence in Fallout Shelters and During
Nuclear War in Early Cold War America” at the biannual
conference of the Nordic Association for American Studies held in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
◆ Jun. 1 Mizumoto gives lecture “Hiroshima and Peace” at Peace
Seminar 2009 organized by the International Center of Hiroshima
Jogakuin University.
◆ Jun. 1-19 Ganesan participates in an international team ofscholars funded by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung for training
Myanmar university lecturers and public officers on public policy
formulation and Southeast Asian International Relations inYangon, Myanmar.
◆ Jun. 4 Mizumoto gives lecture “Hiroshima and Peace” to agroup of students from the Central Connecticut State University,
held at International Conference Center Hiroshima.
◆ Jun. 6 Tanaka gives lecture “Crime and Responsibility: The
Issue of Responsibility in the History of Examining the
Criminality of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”
at Waseda University in Tokyo.
◆ Jun. 12 Mizumoto gives lecture “The Current State and Tasks ofPeace Research” at a training program for Level II Certified
Nursing Administrators organized by the Hiroshima Nursing
Association.
◆ Jun. 14 Takemoto presents paper “World War I and German
Pacifists” at the 59th annual meeting of the Japanese Society ofWestern History, held at Senshu University, Tokyo.
◆ Jun. 15 Mizumoto gives lecture “Hiroshima & Peace: From theAtomic Bomb Experience to International Contribution” at aregular meeting of the Hiroshima Southeast Rotary Club held at
ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel Hiroshima.
◆ Jun. 20 Tanaka gives lecture “Crime and Responsibility: The
Mass Killing by Indiscriminate Bombing” at Kyoto Women’s
University.
◆ Jun. 21 Asai gives lecture “The Situation in Northeast Asia after
North Korea's satellite launch in April 2009” at a public meetingorganized by the Kobe Koryo Culture Club, held in Kobe.
◆ Jun. 23 Asai gives lecture “50 Years of the U.S.-Japan Security
Alliance” at a public meeting organized by the Hokkaido
Committee for Abrogation of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, heldin Sapporo.
◆ Jun. 26 Asai gives lecture “How to Approach North Korea” at a
public meeting organized by the Study Group on the Suita
Incident, held in Suita, Osaka Prefecture.
――Visitors――◆ Apr. 2 President Tae-Kyu Han, Dr. Bong-Jun Ko, Sujeong Kim,
and Jiyoung Lee from the Jeju Peace Institute.
◆ Apr. 15 Noriko Koide of the Nassau County Board of
Cooperative Educational Services and 10 students from Valley
Stream Central High School, N.Y., U.S.
◆ Apr. 21 Akio Suda, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary,
Delegation of Japan to the Conference on Disarmament.
◆ May 29 Dr. Larry Hajime Shinagawa and 9 students from the
University of Maryland, M.D., U.S.
◆ Jun. 18 Yumiko Sakai, associate professor at Chuo University,and 10 students enrolled in the Summer Program of the university.
Vol. 12 No. 1（July 24, 2009）Copyright 2009 HPI, All rights reserved

Hiroshima Peace Institute, Hiroshima City University（Editor: Yuko Takahashi）
Ote-machi Heiwa Bldg. F9/10, 4-1-1 Ote-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0051, Japan
Phone: +81（0）82 544 7570 Fax: +81（0）82 544 7573
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HIROSHIMA RESEARCH NEWS Vol.12 No.1, July 2009