NEW YORK: Peace activists country-wide will combine commemorations of the August 1945 US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with protests against the Bush administration’s proposal to develop new, low-yield nuclear weapons.

More than 50 events in over 30 US cities are planned for the coming week, including workshops, rallies, concerts and Japanese lantern floating as a traditional memorial for the dead.

On Monday, Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy was dropped from the B-29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’ and detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, an even larger bomb, called Fat Man, was exploded over Nagasaki.

In the two cities, 215,000 people were incinerated instantly or died from injuries that year, and thousands more have died since from radiation poisoning, according to statistics from the A-Bomb WWW Project of Hiroshima. Japan quickly sued for peace and World War II ended.

Today, the administration’s plans to develop new low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, aimed at destroying underground bunkers in conventional wars, is a development that has many activists worried. Such a programme would be contrary to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and in violation of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they say.

“This is the most dangerous US administration in history. The Bush administration is promoting the use of nuclear weapons and practising a disastrous foreign policy. Frankly, I’m terrified,” said Max Obuszewski, media outreach coordinator for American Friends Service Committee and in charge of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration in Baltimore.

“The count of nuclear weapons in Iraq is zero. For the US it is 33,000, and rising,” he added in an interview.

“We mark this anniversary as a very stark reminder as to just how serious the US government is about using nuclear weapons,” Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, told IPS.

“This year we need to link this horrible history to the present reality in which the US has occupied a country without proving to anyone that there was a reason to go to war,” Cagan added.

The administration has also disbanded a Department of Energy panel of experts that provided independent oversight of the development of the US nuclear arsenal, London’s ‘Guardian’ newspaper reported on Thursday.

The move comes just days before a planned defence department meeting to discuss the so-called “bunker buster” weapons.

One of the most prominent protests against the use of nuclear arms will be the “Speakout” at that meeting, STRATCOM, Aug. 1-3, in Omaha, Nebraska.

Another demonstration expected to draw a large crowd is scheduled for the Livermore, California nuclear weapons lab where, along with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — both owned by the University of California — every nuclear weapon in the US arsenal has been designed.

Protesters will gather on Aug. 10 to shout “Hiroshima and Nagasaki Never Again!”

New York City’s commemoration on Aug. 6, the Ceremony for Peace and Disarmament, is scheduled to coincide with the docking of the Peace Boat, a Japanese peace organisation travelling the world by ship. The multi-lingual event will feature international musicians.

The ceremony will be “a reminder to the global community that we have not forgotten and will not forget ... that we are not OK with the Bush administration’s plans to develop new nuclear weapons”, says Susi Snyder, coordinator for the New York office of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which is helping to organise the event.

Aug. 9 will also mark 100 days since Washington launched its war on Iraq Mar. 20. Many activists see the administration’s aggressive tactics and the burgeoning defence budget in the face of economic recession as another cause for concern.

Wilson Powell, executive director of Veterans for Peace, finds the anniversary of the bombings particularly poignant because his father worked at the University of California helping to design the original atom bomb.

“In today’s context,” Powell said, “this date is simply a horrific reminder ... the bombs have been used once against people, so they could be used again. In today’s political environment, with tensions running high, it is more and more tempting to use whatever is in our arsenal. I don’t remember a time as dangerous as the one we live in today.”

He is also deeply troubled that the defence budget is expanding while welfare programmes and education funding are being cut. “Military spending impoverishes not only the economics of the country, but the spirit of the country,” Powell said.

After the Japanese Parliament’s controversial decision on Saturday to send troops to Iraq, possibly in violation of the nation’s pacifist constitution, Japanese activists also anticipate a big week.

The World Conference Against A & H Bombs will be held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Aug. 3-9, following a statement denouncing the US use of force in Iraq and the use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. —Dawn/InterPress News Service.