Category: Hiroshima Day Sydney History

Rally and March for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Denis Doherty

Saturday August 2 12 noon

details for the March and Rally

Route of the March

Route of the March

Speakers

Jenny Leong – Greens MP for Newtown

Gem Romuld – Director ICAN Australia

Sara Haddad – Palestinian Writer

Message for Hiroshima /Nagasaki Day 2025

World on the brink of Nuclear Disaster

Three times this year we have been very close to nuclear catastrophe of one form or another.  We had the India – Pakistan conflict, Ukraine – Russia conflict and recently Israel/US – Iran in the ‘12 day war’.  We were faced with either nuclear facilities being bombed or nuclear weapons being used by one country on another!  Either way nuclear radiation and massive numbers of deaths were on the cards.

Last year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Hibakusha of Japan.  The heroism of these victims of Hiroshima/Nagasaki constantly campaigning for nuclear disarmament has been recognised by the world but the message has not seeped into the heads of the major governments of the world including our own.  The US and Israel are constantly breaking agreements and treaties while they take warlike actions that increase the likelihood of more war and brings the world closer to a nuclear exchange from which no nation will be spared.

It is time to double our efforts to get Australia to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).  The PM promised before he was elected that he would sign the treaty, but it has been ignored.

Australia continues to promote war by assisting Israel to complete its ethnic cleansing of Gaza by massive violence.  Continues to make plans to buy the hideously expensive AUKUS submarines while the US hammers us to double our military spending and to get us involved in a war against China.  Meanwhile our housing crisis is still not solved, our hospitals are without psychiatrists and our nurses are angry because they are being underpaid.  Australia is going in the wrong direction.

Organised by: The Hiroshima Day Committee PO Box 145 Glebe NSW 2037.  Email: hiroshimacommitteesydney@gmail.com; Website: hiroshimacommittee.org

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Statement 2024

Denis Doherty

We are here to remember that on August 6 and 9, 1945, 79 years ago, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Almost 200,000 men, women and children were killed instantly and many thousands more died later of burns or radiation sickness. 

We are here to remember those who died in this horrific event and to remember all victims of nuclear war preparations including those who lived on Pacific Islands and our own first nations people who died during British testing. 

Since that terrible event, France, Britian, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Israel have acquired nuclear weapons. 

We say that no country should ever have nuclear weapons.

Civil Society has pushed back against nuclear weapons and an organisation founded in Melbourne – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ICAN – has successfully got the UN to pass the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  So far 70 States have ratified this treaty.

We demand that the Australian Government ratify the UN treaty to ban Nuclear Weapons, reject the AUKUS nuclear powered submarines and reject the Opposition’s proposal for nuclear power reactors on 7 sites. 

Australia is supporting wars and preparing for war instead of concentrating on solving the social issues in Australia and the region.

There are no victors or vanquished in a nuclear war.

Today we solemnly vow to do everything we can to make sure that Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happen again.

1964 Details of the Hiroshima Planning

Denis Doherty

 

Hiroshima Day 1964 account printed in the Tribune August 1964

March and Sing

SYDNEY : An appeal to all supporters to plan now for the Hiroshima Day march and rally on August 9 has been issued by the Hiroshima Commemoration Committee, the city march will leave Hyde Park (Liverpool Street end) at 2 pm for a rally at the Trocadero, George Street, at 3 pm.

A prominent national speaker on Australia’s relations with Asia will be the highlight of the first half of the rally; the second half will be a program of folksongs of peace and protest from some of Sydney’s leading artists.

The Hiroshima Commemoration Committee suggests that families should hold picnic lunches in the Park before the city march, and should listen to, or join in with, groups of folksingers. On Saturday August 8, the Committee invites local supporting organisations to plan distribution of the pamphlet The Choice, published by a group of women peace supporters.

Besides this, the HCC will have available a single-sheet leaflet for selective distribution with details of the August 9 march and rally. Supplies of both the pamphlet and leaflet will be available at cost from Room 18, 421 Sussex Street, Sydney. Phone MA 4643. ”

The Committee invites supporters to arrange, where practicable, a pool of motor transport to bring others to Hyde Park for the picnic and march Banners and smocks can be prepared from calico available at the Committee’s office.

Melbourne, too

Youth and music are expected to keynote this year’s activities for No More Hiroshimas in Melbourne. There will be a two-day march from Frankston to Melbourne.  In Adelaide, interest in and support for the petition opposing French atomic testing is growing. Signatures have been collected in factories such as Islington Railway Workshops, British Tube Mills and Jury and Spiers, in suburbs and in city streets.

Members of the Eureka Youth League and the Union of Australian Women are prominent in the work and have collected at least 300 signatures.

N-free zones

 

Speaking in Denmark recently Soviet Premier Khrushchov made statements, of interest to supporters of a nuclear free southern hemisphere and to opponents of the US naval communications station in Western Australia.

Asked at an interview what guarantees the USSR could give if a place were declared a zone of peace, he said:

“We are great advocates of making a start somehow, with some territory, to clear the earth of thermonuclear weapons.

“A country which declares itself a non-atomic power and is recognized by all countries as such has the advantage that if war breaks out, no nuclear bombs will fall on its territory. I think this is a not insignificant advantage.”

Asked if the USSR would he ready to include its northern territories in the proposed non-nuclear zone, he said the whole USSR would be included if the other powers would do the same with their territories.

We will hit bases In a contrasting passage of his reply Mr. Krushchov said everyone knew US polaris submarines were based on Britain, spearheaded at the USSR.  He was not threatening Britain, “but since Britain has accepted American rockets directed against us we have, of course, already allocated the necessary number of our nuclear rockets to strike at Polaris submarine bases at once, if war begins, and put them out of action. You can imagine, I think, what this means.

“Countries which renounce nuclear weapons,, refuse to make their territory available for bases with such weapons and proclaim themselves as nuclear-free must be recognised by other powers as not participating in nuclear war if war breaks out.

“The USSR would readily make such a statement and strictly abide by commitments if other nuclear powers undertook similar commitments.”

History of HIroshima Day Marches in Sydney

Denis Doherty

Dear all,

We are endeavoring to find out the first Hiroshima Day Event in Sydney of any size as well as any picture or posters from that time.  At present we have two offerings one from 1964, and one from 1960.

1964

Jim Cairns MHR

A small report in the Tribune July 1964

SYDNEY: Dr. J. F. Cairns, M.H.R., will be the main speaker at Sydney’s Hiroshima Day rally, the Hiroshima Commemoration Committee announces.  The Hiroshima Commemoration’ Committee in Sydney has organised a city march and a rally- at the Trocadero for Sunday, August 9, 1964.

The march will leave the Liverpool Street end of Hyde Park at 2 p.m. and finish at the Trocadero in time for the commencement of the rally at 3 p.m.