Oslo’s ornate City Hall was once again packed, decorated and with the Royal Family in place on Tuesday when the Norwegian Nobel Committee ceremoniously awarded the Nobel Prize Prize to three elderly survivors of nuclear holocaust. They represented the organization that actually won the Peace Prize, and they’re all determined that no nuclear weapons should ever be used again.
They also all hope the leaders of Russia, Israel, China, France, the US, Great Britain, India, Pakistan and North Korea that all have nuclear arms were listening. Terumi Tanaka, one of the leaders of the Nihon Hidankyo organization that actually won the prize, stressed how survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 are still struggling, nearly 80 years later.
The 92-year-old Tanaka, speaking on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, also issued strong pleas not only for nuclear disarmament but also for an end to the use of nuclear weapons as a threat to others. That’s something that the much younger Jorgen Watne Frydnes also stressed in his first address as leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Frydnes is less than half Tanaka’s age, and mentioned how at the age of 40, he’s part of a generation that hasn’t experienced war. “I grew up after the Cold War had ended, when democracy seemed unstoppable and nuclear disarmament realistic … but that time is over.” He has since worked with the consequences of terror in Norway (following a right-wing extremist’s attacks on the Norwegian government and young Labour Party members) and now, war and other forms of terror abroad.
The Nobel Committee’s leader called it “an honour to be your hosts,” describing them as ultimately “winners who have never waivered” in their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Those that exist “should never be used again,” Frydnes said, especially after listening to Tanaka’s chilling description of what he’d seen and experienced in August 1945.
Frydnes also directly called upon the five nations with nuclear arms that have gone along with non-proliferation agreements “to take their obligations seriously. An agreement on a ban on nuclear weapons must be ratified by more countries.”
Tuesday’s ceremony, held as always on the anniversary of benefactor Alfred Nobel’s death on December 10, 1896, was followed by television interviews, a traditional torchlit parade through downtown Oslo and a Nobel banquet at the Norwegian capital’s Grand Hotel.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund