U.S. brings the toys home from Vietnam while.... ..The Bomb still takes its toll in Japan

"THERE WERE the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts," wrote Dr. Michihiko Hachiya in his diary. "Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together.

"An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw--complete silence."

That was Hiroshima, Japan, on the morning of August 6, 1945. More than a quarter of a century later, the victims of the A-Bomb attack on Hiroshima still are suffering, but they are no longer silent.

They live along the Motoyasu-gawa, or River of Eternal Calm, which flows through the now prosperous city of Hiroshima. The river is lined with their tin and wooden shacks crowded together in a sewerless shantytown. After years as outcasts, they are bitter. They feel disinherited by their own government.

Tsuyo Shima is a member of Hiseido, or the Second Generation of A-Bomb Victims. "Maybe you have visited the 'Peace Park', "he said to me. "The Japanese government has filled it with trees and flowers and a memorial for world peace. That is the place where the poorest A-Bomb victims used to live, but they were forced to evacuate so the government could build that park.

"Even these slums embarrass the government and periodically they have big fires here to clear out the people. This is the kind of life that A-Bomb victims are forced to live by the hand of the government."

Hiseido was formed on August 6, 1970, the 25th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Since that time, Hiseido has been working to expose the plight that A-Bomb victims still face in Japan.

"A BOMB VICTIMS are highly discriminated against in Japanese society. We are not hired for jobs and people do not want to marry us because they fear that we carry radiation disease within us. We are taught to be ashamed and to hide the fact that we are victims of the atom bomb.

"But it is the Japanese government that perpetuates this discrimination. They take no responsibility for A-Bomb victims. It is a conscious policy of the Japanese government to push us aside to protect the image of the nation. Twenty-six years ago--as soon as the bomb was dropped--the Allied forces came in and took control of our city. They censored all information so no one even knew that it was an A-Bomb that had been dropped on us.

"Since that time, the government has tried to hide our true suffering. Many of us have no decent homes, no chance for good jobs and no adequate medical care."

At the Hiroshima A-Bomb Hospital, seventy to eighty people still die each year from leukemia--a disease directly linked to radiation effects. Resentment against the hospital which is run by the Japanese government was expressed by Masaho Suzuki, a twenty-two year-old resident of Hiroshima whose father was burned in the bombing.

"Patients are told that their symptoms have nothing to do with radioactivity poisoning. It is only their autopsy which proves their death was linked to the A-Bomb. The very poor can't even afford to go to the hospital, and their diseases remain untreated and unexplained."

The U.S. government has built and operated the Atomic Bombs Casualties Commission (ABCC) in Hiroshima for over a decade. However, though they use A-Bomb victims and their children for research in radiation diseases, they do no clinical treatment of patients.

Tsuyo Shima explained. "The ABCC does not serve the needs of A-Bomb victims. We may have been studied, but nothing is ever told to us."

PRESENTLY Hiseido is planning to build a hospital and treatment center suited to the particular needs of the A-Bomb victims. They have already raised several million yen and have selected a site on the outskirts of Hiroshima.

Hiseido is especially strong in its public criticism of the Sato government for its weak stand on nuclear weapons. When Prime Minister Sato visited Hiroshima last August 6, he was the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit that city since the dropping of the bomb. Hiseido organized a demonstration to protest the visit.

"No previous Prime Minister could visit the city because the bitterness towards the government for ignoring the suffering of the bombing victims was so great. Sato said he came here to pray for the dead and to commemorate the city as a symbol of world peace. We A-Bomb victims could not allow him to come to the ground where our parents and brothers and sisters died under the negligence of his government."

The Sato government has been trying for some time to allay fears of nuclear weaponry among the Japanese people. Many observers here feel that, despite official disclaimers, this is part of government plans to pave the way for popular acceptance of Japanese nuclear armament, now non-existent. Certainly, Japanese industry is ready. It is estimated that nuclear warheads could be produced within two years at the most.

But in Japan, the nuclear issue is charged with emotion. Recently, a Japanese Diet member exposed the probable presence of U.S. nuclear weapons at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station, ironically only 22 miles south of Hiroshima. The reaction in the Iwakuni area and throughout Japan was strong--but none stronger than that of the A-Bomb victims.

"We want the nuclear weapons removed from Iwakuni and we want them destroyed. If they are just taken out of out country, they will be sent to Thailand or Kores and used for oppressing the people there.

"All people in power claim that nuclear weapons are absolute and can solve all problems. But we A-Bomb victims know that is wrong. Although we face an unknown death every day, as we survive and continue to survive, we will never allow the use of nuclear weapons again."

Copyright 1972, Dispatch News Service International