MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. A senior Russian legislator has come out with an idea of declaring the 1945 atom bombings of Japan by the United States as crimes against humanity, for which purpose the resources of the United Nations might be employed.
Frants Klintsevich, the first deputy leader of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, believes that such crimes are not subject to the statute of limitations.
"These days, 70 years after, it is still not too late to officially declare that act as a crime against humanity," said Klintsevich, a member of the State Duma’s defence committee. "That must certainly be done to ensure no one ever has an idea of doing anything like this again."
"The atom bombings of two Japanese cities - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - on August 6 and 9, 1945 had no military reasons behind. The United States used them as an act of intimidation - and not so much against Japan as against the Soviet Union," he believes.
"I believe that that act of vandalism, insane by nature, was a real crime against humanity, and it should be declared so by all international institutions concerned, including the United Nations," Klintsevich said.
He recalled the Rome Statute, which introduced the International Criminal Court, interpreted as crimes against humanity any acts committed for the purpose of deliberate large-scale or systematic attack against any civilians.
"The bombings of Japanese cities unequivocally fall under the definition of the Rome Statute," he said.
1945 atom bombings should be remembered as well as Nazi atrocities
Sergey Naryshkin, the speaker of Russia’s State Duma, believes the 1945 atom bombings of Japan by the United States should be remembered as well as Nazi atrocities committed during World War II.
"Regrettably, in the modern world there are influential forces that have been doing their utmost in a bid to erase from history the details of those bombings and their horrible results, as well as the awareness of those who committed those crimes," Naryshkin said at a round-table conference on Wednesday at the Moscow state institute of international relations MGIMO timed for the 70th anniversary of atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Naryshkin is certain that "memory of this is no less important than memory of atrocities committed by the Nazis and Japanese military."
"The illusion of impunity may bring about some very grave consequences," Naryshkin warned, adding that "this is precisely the reason why the ongoing distortions of World War II history and the build-up of NATO’s aggressive potential are so dangerous."
"The West’s reliance on the use of force and disregard for human life have already resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Ukraine has now joined the list. The civil war in that country has killed, according to UN statistics, about 7,000. According to other sources, fatalities number tens of thousands," he said.
Japan this year remembers the atom bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the 70th time. On August 6 and 9 there will be memorial events honoring the victims of those tragedies that took a toll of 450,000 lives.