By Tom McClimon
September 11, 2006

For the second year in a row, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba mentioned the U.S. Conference of Mayors in his annual Peace Declaration. Addressing thousands of observers at the 61st anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, Akiba took note in his annual declaration of the work that the Conference of Mayors has done to promote peace and stop nuclear weapons proliferation. “Taking the lead in this effort is the US Conference of Mayors … (which has) adopted a resolution demanding that all nuclear weapons states, including the United States, immediately cease all targeting of cities with nuclear weapons,” stated Akiba.

In his remarks, Akiba announced a new campaign entitled Cities Are Not Targets to demand that nuclear weapons states stop targeting cities for nuclear attacks. “Cities and citizens of the world have a duty to release the lost sheep from the spell and liberate the world from nuclear weapons,” declared Akiba standing in the shadows of the skeletal A-bomb Dome, the ruins of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which was at the epicenter of the explosion.

The annual commemoration of the atomic bombing and its victims takes places on August 6 each year at Peace Memorial Park. At last year’s 60th anniversary, Conference of Mayor past president former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill and Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran dedicated a park bench at Peace Park. It is the only memorial by an American organization that has been allowed in the Park.