Media statement 20 April 2007

Tribute to Nagasaki’s assassinated Mayor, Iccho Ito

Waitakere City Mayor Bob Harvey says the assassination Nagasaki’s Mayor Iccho Ito is a great tragedy and the world has lost one of its great as two of the world’s great active campaigners against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Mayor Harvey who had met Mayor Ito during a peace initiative at the United Nations, has written in his Mayoral report:

“I am almost at a loss about what to say in terms of the killing of Nagasaki’s Mayor Iccho Ito on Tuesday, April 17. Mayor Ito was born a month after Nagasaki was destroyed by a nuclear bomb in 1945 and was the vice president of Mayors for Peace to which I belong. He will be tragically missed by the people of Nagasaki, the people of Japan and indeed all of those around the world who share his vision of a nuclear weapons-free world.

I met Mayor Ito in New York in 2004 as part of a delegation I was involved in that was asking the United Nations to try and stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We shared a bus ride from downtown New York to the site of the World Trade Centre, then still being cleared of the rubble.

Both Ito and his Japanese colleague and Mayor of Hiroshima,Tadatoshi Akiba put relics from their respective bombings on the memorabilia wall. I recall them pinning glasses of victims that had been frozen in time by the blast of the bombs. It was a very moving experience as we were being hosted by family and friends of those who had perished in the 9 / 11 tragedy.

Mayors Ito and Akiba at that time were regarded as two of the world’s great active campaigners against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mayor Ito’s loss to the anti nuclear cause is a great tragedy and he was an outstanding mayor for his city. I have sent our condolences to Nagasaki and plan to visit the city to pay tribute to Mayor Ito when I am in Japan in June.

ENDS

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