SIXTY years ago this week the world entered what is euphemistically known as "the atomic age" but what was, for residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the devastating use of atomic weapons against a civilian population. It was the United States that did so -- the only country ever to have done so. At 8.15am on 6 August in Hiroshima -- the exact moment the first bomb hit -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi together with 55,000 others mourned the dead and said prayers for peace before 1,000 doves were released into the sky. More than 210,000 people were killed as the two cities were flattened, the majority vapourised in the unprecedented force of the US attack, with many others dying horribly in the following months from the effects of radiation and burns. Debate still rages as to whether the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities can be justified. Some advance that the bombings accelerated the end of World War II while others argue that Japan was already on its knees. Controversy particularly surrounds the attack on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima where a more powerful plutonium bomb was used as opposed to the uranium one dropped on Hiroshima. "It was not military strategy but a mere experiment," said Teruo Ideguchi, a survivor of the destruction. "Today, we are all hibakusha," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a memorial speech, using the Japanese word for victims of the atomic strikes. Despite the near universal condemnation the attacks have received, 60 years on the world remains in tension because of the nuclear ambitions, real or alleged, as well as the capabilities, known or surmised, of states. "We are witnessing continued efforts to strengthen and modernise nuclear arsenals. We also face a real threat that nuclear weapons will spread," Annan warned. Motivated to prevent a repetition of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities, demonstrations were staged worldwide against state-sanctioned military terror. In Sydney, Australia, Junko Morimoto, a survivor, described the "perfect picture of hell" which Hiroshima became 60 years ago. It was "enough to break millions of hearts," she told a memorial rally in Sydney's Hyde Park. "Hiroshima and Nagasaki taught us two lessons. One of them is to realise that we humans now have the power to create hell," added Morimoto. "The other lesson is that there are some shameful people who will use those horrible powers." Near the Texas ranch of President George W Bush a Japanese survivor and a former American POW demanded the abolition of all nuclear arms. At protests in Nevada nearly 200 were arrested. A further 19 were arrested at the US Navy's Bangor nuclear submarine station near Seattle. Demonstrations were also held at nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos in New Mexico, Lawrence Livermore in California and at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The United States, which in 2003 invaded and occupied Iraq under the pretext of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, has spent over $5.5 trillion since 1945 on its own nuclear weapons programmes, building over 70,000 nuclear missiles since 1951.
