Title an Overview of Japanese-African

An Overview of Japanese-African Relations and the 1960s Campaigns against the Atomic Bomb - Title Based on an Analysis of the 1962 Accra Assembly of the World Without the Bomb- Author(s) 溝辺,泰雄 Citation 明治大学国際日本学研究, 10(1): 55-69 URL http://hdl.handle.net/10291/20655 Rights Issue Date 2018-03-31 Text version publisher Type Departmental Bulletin Paper DOI https://m-repo.lib.meiji.ac.jp/ Meiji University 55 【Articles】 An Overview of Japanese-African Relations and the 1960s Campaigns against the Atomic Bomb: Based on an Analysis of the 1962 Accra Assembly of the World Without the Bomb(1) Yasu’o MIZOBE, PhD Abstract In June 1962, a week-long international conference titled ‘The World Without the Bomb’ was convened in Accra, Ghana, attracting approximately 130 participants, mainly from the Non- Aligned Countries, who discussed the issues of disarmament and denuclearisation. Among the convention attendees were three Japanese: Shinzo Hamai, the then mayor of Hiroshima City; Ichiro Moritaki, a professor at the Hiroshima University and a leader of the anti-atomic and hydrogen bomb movement and Tomi Kora, a leading female activist and a former member of the House of Councilors. Through an examination of offi cial documents, press reports and private papers collected in Japan, Ghana, Kenya and Britain, this study analyses how the anti- nuclear arms conference held in Ghana impacted campaigns against atomic and hydrogen bombs in Japan as well as how Japan, as a victim of nuclear bombing, infl uenced disarmament and denuclearisation movements in Africa in the early 1960s. Keywords: Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, Campaigns for nuclear disarmament, Peace movements in Africa, Japanese-African relations after World War II Introduction In June 1962, a week-long international conference titled the Accra Assembly for the World Without the Bomb was convened in Accra, Ghana, attracting approximately 130 participants, mainly from the non-aligned countries, who discussed the issues of disarmament and denuclearisation. Among the convention attendees were three Japanese: Shinzo Hamai, the then-mayor of Hiroshima City; Ichiro Moritaki, a professor at Hiroshima University and a leader of the anti-atomic and hydrogen bomb movement; and Tomi Kora, a leading feminist and (1) This paper is a revised and extended version of a paper presented at the 53rd annual conference of the Japan Association of African Studies at College of Bio-resource Sciences, Nihon University, Fujisawa. The author is very grateful to an anonymous reviewer for his/her invaluable comments and suggestions. 56 『明治大学国際日本学研究』第 10 巻第 1 号（ 149 ） peace movement activist and a former member of the House of Councillors. As is widely known, relations (at least formal relations) between Japan and Africa were suspended from the end of the Second World War until the early 1950s. Major topics related to Japanese-African relations since the 1950s have been analysed in various studies, such as those collected in Africa and Japan (1994), edited by Masahisa Kawabata,(2) and Jun Morikawa's critical analysis of Japanese diplomatic policies.(3) Regarding the academic sphere, a memoir by Kawabata, Katsuhiko Kitagawa and Eisei Kurimoto traces the history of African studies in Japan after the Second World War.(4) In addition, works by Africa-based scholars such as Themba Sono's Japan and Africa (1993),(5) Seifudein Adem's Japan, a Model and a Partner (2006)(6) and Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo's Japan-Africa Relations (2010)(7) have deepened and broadened the analysis of the history of Japanese-African relations since the Second World War. However, as far as the present author has confi rmed, there are few studies focusing on the mid-twentieth-century struggle for peace, especially regarding the abolition of nuclear weapons, in the context of Japanese-African relations after the Second World War. In addition, the fact that three Japanese representatives participated in discussions with Africans, African Americans and pacifi sts from around the world in the capital city of Ghana, a newly independent African country and one of the leading nations of Pan-Africanism at the time, has not been fully analysed in previous studies on mid-twentieth-century Japanese- African relations and the global anti-nuclear weapon movement. Therefore, as a preliminary report on the present author's three-year research project,(8) this paper briefl y examines how the anti-nuclear arms conference held in Ghana impacted campaigns against the atomic and (2) Masahisa Kawabata, ed., Ahurika to Nihon (Africa and Japan), Keisoh Shoboh, 1994. It contains eighteen chapters covering such topics as the historical, political, economic and developmental relations between Japan and Africa from the nineteenth century to the early 1990s. (3) Jun Morikawa, Minami-Ahurika to Nihon: Kankei no Rekisi, Kouzoh, Kadai (South Africa and Japan: A History of Connection, Structures, Challenges), Dohbunkan, 1988; Jun Morikawa, Japan and Africa: Big Business and Diplomacy, London: C. Hurst, 1997. (4) Masahisa Kawabata, Katsuhiko Kitagawa and Eisei Kurimoto, 'Nihon Ahurika Gakkai no Souritsu ni Kakawatta Shodantai to Hitobito (Groups and Peoples who were Involved in the Establishment of the JAAS)', In Groups and Peoples who were Involved in the Establishment of the JAAS (edited by The Committee for the Commemoration Projects for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Japan Association of African Studies), JAAS, 2013, pp. 3-19. http://african-studies.com/j/seminars/img/JAAS_SI.pdf (5) Themba Sono, Japan and Africa: the Evolution and Nature of Political, Economic and Human Bonds, 1543-1993, Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1993. (6) Seifudein Adem, Japan, a Model and a Partner: Views and Issues in African Development, Leiden: Brill, 2006. (7) Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Japan-Africa Relations, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. (8) 'A Historical Research on the Development of International Movements for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle of the Twentieth Century from a Perspective of Japanese-African Relations', JSPS KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for Scientifi c Research) [C], Grant Number: 16K03096, https://kaken.nii. ac.jp/en/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-16K03096/ （ 148 ） An Overview of Japanese-African Relations and the 1960s Campaigns against the Atomic Bomb: Based on an Analysis of the 1962 Accra Assembly of the World Without the Bomb 57 hydrogen bomb in Japan as well as how Japan, as a victim of nuclear bombing, influenced the disarmament and denuclearisation movements in Africa in the early 1960s, through an examination of offi cial documents, press reports and private papers held in Ghana, Kenya, the United Kingdom and Japan. Nuclear Disarmament Movements from the Mid-1950s to the Early 1960s In the mid-1950s and the early 1960s, the world witnessed the rise of mass movements for nuclear disarmament. In Japan, which had been shocked by the horrific Lucky Dragon incident, in which a Japanese tuna fi shing boat was damaged by the hydrogen bomb tests of the United States at Bikini Atoll, a furore against nuclear tests exploded among the public and an anti-nuclear weapon campaign arose. On 6 August 1955, the First World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was convened in Hiroshima, and in the following month the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) was established. In Europe and the United States, various mass organisations were formed, such as the UK National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests in 1957, which was reorganised as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the following year, and the US National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) in 1957.(9) Many people turned out into the streets to protest the spiralling nuclear arms race. Moreover, in the same period, Africa also faced the threat of nuclear weapons due to the French plan to conduct nuclear testing in the Sahara Desert, which France announced in the summer of 1959.(10) According to Vincent J. Intondi, 'Frightened and angered, many Africans saw the French test as another form of European colonialism. Those who lived in Ghana feared that nuclear fallout would devastate their cocoa industry, a vital source of national revenue'.(11) To stop the French nuclear test in the Sahara, European and American (including African American) activists organised an international protest group called the Sahara Protest Team.(12) They planned to send the team to the test site to halt the French plan directly. The team was led by British activists April Carter and Michael Scott and involved leading American pacifi st A. J. Muste as well as African American activists Bayard Rustin and Bill Sutherland. They (9) Lawrence S. Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb, Vol.2: Resisting the Bomb-A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970, Stanford University Press, 1997, p. 52. (10) Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb, Vol.2, pp.265-266. (11) Vincent J. Intondi, African Americans Against the Bomb Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement, Stanford University Press, 2015, p. 51. (12) For a detailed analysis of the Sahara Protest Team in the context of Pan-Africanism and black internationalism in the mid-twentieth century, see Jean Allman, 'Nuclear Imperialism and the Pan- African Struggle for Peace and Freedom: Ghana, 1959-1962', Souls, 10(2), 2008, pp. 87-92. 58 『明治大学国際日本学研究』第 10 巻第 1 号（ 147 ） received full support from the Ghanaian government and it decided Accra would be the starting point for the team. Although the protest team could not reach the test site because its members were arrested by the French authorities in the Upper Volta (present Burkina Faso), their eff orts drew the attention of the African, British and US media.(13) However, despite fi erce protest and criticism by the public, France carried out its fi rst nuclear test in the Sahara Desert of Algeria on 13 February 1960.(14) In opposition to the French actions, protests erupted throughout the African continent.

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