Hiroshima: The Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace Prize laureates from the last four decades gathered yesterday at a hotel a few miles from ground zero of the world's first atomic bomb attack to urge the end of nuclear weapons.
The award winners also focused on the plight of those who couldn't attend the annual World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, including this year's winner, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, and Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's detained pro-democracy activist who won in 1991.
‘Very sad'
Liu Xiaobao "failed to come here. It is very sad," the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who won in 1989, told The Associated Press.
Wu'er Kaixi, a prominent student leader from the 1989 pro-democracy protests in China's Tiananmen Square, addressed the meeting in Liu's stead.
"I look forward to the day when my country is a land with freedom of expression," Wu'er said, reading from Liu's last speech before he was jailed. Suu Kyi, under house arrest for more than 15 of the last 21 years, was expected to be released yesterday in Myanmar when her latest detention period expires.
The annual meeting brings past award recipients together to call attention to their achievements and work, as well as to push the prize's overall message of human rights and nonviolence.
At the opening ceremony Friday morning, laureates were given necklaces made of paper cranes — a symbol of peace in Japan, by local schoolchildren.
They also heard the story of a "hibakusha" or survivor of the August 6, 1945, atomic attack, who described his journey home through the carnage that day.
Hatred
"I hate atomic bombs, but I know we cannot erase hatred by hating others," said Akihiro Takahashi, who was a boy in Hiroshima when the Americans dropped the bomb.
"Hatred has to be overcome,"
Japan is hosting the event as it prepares to welcome world leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, yesterday for the separate Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Yokohama.
