FAITH
RISK                                  AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
CHANGE                                     Middle Atlantic Region
Since 1917					NEWS RELEASE
                                      4806 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21212
            Phone: 410-323-7200*Fax: 410-323-7292*E.mail: afscmar@igc.org

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                       August 3, 1998

Contact:   Max Obuszewski  [410] 323-7200 or 410-377-7987 or maxo@igc.org


13TH ANNUAL HIROSHIMA COMMEMORATION ON AUGUST 6

WHO:   Guided by Quaker belief in the dignity of all people and the power of
nonviolence, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) participated in
many of the major movements and historic events of the 20th century since
1917.  In Baltimore, headquarters for AFSC's Middle Atlantic Region, the
organization has consistently spoken out for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

WHAT: The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, with the sponsorship
of the AFSC, is organizing its 13th annual commemoration.  This year the
commemoration will begin with a vigil concentrating on three issues: 1] an
end to weapons research at Johns Hopkins University; 2] the condemnation of
the use of Depleted Uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War; and 3] a call
for a Citizens Inspection Team to seek evidence of research at JHU's Applied
Physics Laboratory on weapons of mass or indiscriminate destruction.
 
Traveling from Japan will be two Hibakusha, the Japanese word for survivors
of the atomic bomb, who will join a Commemoration Circle and share their
experiences. Finally, Uday Mohan, a historian, will lead a forum entitled
"The Media & the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan."

WHEN:       Thursday, August 6, 1998 

WHERE:    5:30 PM Vigil at 34TH & North Charles Streets
       
          6:15 PM Commemoration Circle near Eisenhower Library
                 
          7:30 PM Forum at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse 
                at 3107 N. Charles Street

WHY: Since the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory received
some $350 million in Navy contracts in the past fiscal year, the
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee will again begin its vigil
outside the Homewood campus. In an August 3 letter to William R. Brody,
president of Johns Hopkins,  the Committee urged an end to all military
research at the school and requested an opportunity for a Citizens
Inspection Team to tour the APL.  

A major concern of this year's commemoration is the debilitating economic
sanctions imposed on Iraq on August 6, 1990. For the past eight years, the
devastating combination of sanctions and the Pentagon's use of Depleted
Uranium weapons during the Persian Gulf War continues to wreak havoc on the
Iraqi people.  

Thus people are being encouraged to fold origami peace cranes, one for each
year of the sanctions, to be sent to the White House and the United Nations
as a call for the removal of the sanctions against Iraq. This Hiroshima Day,
Sadako Sasaki, the Japanese girl who died from radiation sickness, the
victims of Gulf War disease and the people of Iraq will be remembered. 

Rev. John Oliver, of the Immanuel United Church of Christ, will be the
moderator of the Commemoration Circle.  Sherrye Walker, a member of Amnesty
International, will lead the singing, and poetry will be read.

Ms. Hiroko Mukai, who as a child in Hiroshima was about 2.4 kilometers from
the atomic blast's Ground Zero, and Mr. Chise Kihara, also a child in
Hiroshima and about 3 kilometers from Ground Zero, will share their
experiences.  Joining them as a translator will be Mr. Izumi Yamaguchi, a
writer from Tokyo.

Uday Mohan, a graduate student in the history department at American
University, has written extensively about the use of atomic weapons on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He is prepared to discuss the media's perpetuation
of the historical myth that dropping the atomic bomb was the sole
alternative to a bloody invasion of Japan.  The Washington, D.C. resident is
co-author of two articles which appear in HIROSHIMA'S SHADOW, Writings on
the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy. The first article
"The Construction of Conventional Wisdom" was written with Sanho Tree, and
the second "How the U.S. Press Missed the Target," with Tony Capaccio. The
book, edited by Kai Bird and Lawrence Lifschultz, was published by The
Pamphleteer's Press, Stony Creek, Connecticut, in 1998. 

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