Japan commemorated Hiroshima Day on Tuesday, by staring at the ground silently and remembering those tens of thousands of innocent people who perished On that day 46 years ago. Some say (hey died as sacrificial lambs at the alter of scientific innovation; others still defend the bombing, saying it was necessary in order to achieve a quick surrender of Japanese forces and • thereby save lives.

Whatever the case might have been, one fact is inescapable: that man’s ingenuity, which succeeded in splitting the atom and extracting such astonishing force of energy, was used in the way scientists would never have wished had they been given the choice in the first place.

Atomic weapons have now become the scourge of the human race. Reports of people still contracting cancer and other incurable diseases in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a direct result of the radiation emanated by the two bombs dropped on those cities on August 6 and 8 respectively, cannot but make people shiver at what might happen if a nuclear war were to break out.

It is little wonder, therefore, that most people everywhere view nuclear weapons but as an unmitigated evil. The thought that a simple political miscalculation on somebody's part — perfectly possible, since to err is merely human — or even /a technological malfunction could trigger a worldwide nuclear exchange, makes the majority people of this planet reject the idea of the very existence of nuclear weapons.

The signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty on July 31 in Moscow between the United States and the Soviet Union marked first, but significant, step on the road to nuclear disarmament. But we still have a long way to go. Even after START I. both the US and USSR will retain enough nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles to burn the planet many times over. On the other hand. China is yet to even commit Itself to nuclear arms limitation, let alone disarmament. Britain and France continue to maintain their arsenals, while smaller states such as Israel. Pakistan. South Africa and India are known to have build up such a capability.

The next decade or so will, therefore, be dangerous and crucial. We can only hope START is the start to worldwide nuclear disarmament which will come about as we wake up to the reality of our planet. Until then, we hope and demand that there will be no more Hiroshimas.