Bellport marchers call for peace on anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bomb
Participants march in silence on Bellport Lane in Bellport on Sunday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
More than 30 people gathered near the village marina in Bellport on Sunday to call for world peace and remember the lives lost in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 80 years ago.
Many of the attendees dressed in white, the Japanese color of mourning, and carried signs calling for peace and nuclear disarmament. A procession started at South Country Library and walked silently down Bellport Lane to the marina, accompanied by a village police car.
“We mourn all those lives lost as we have spent trillions on weapons of death and destruction and failed to address the threats of global climate change and nuclear catastrophe, and to meet the needs of human beings here on Long Island, and around the country and around the world,” said Margaret Melkonian, executive director of the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives and a speaker at the event.
The atomic bombs were dropped first on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and then three days later on Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people died in the blasts and the months after from burns, radiation sickness and other illnesses.
Sunday’s event was hosted by the South Country Peace Group, an organization founded in 1982 in response to the nuclear tensions of the Cold War.
The group has continued to advocate over the decades to “stop the arms trade, cut the arms budget and redirect resources to the environment and human needs,” according to Michelle Santantonio, chairwoman of the peace group.
She encouraged attendees to contact lawmakers to show support for a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives in January that calls on the United States to lead global efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and set policies to prevent nuclear war.
Margaret Melkonian, executive director of the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, speaks in Bellport Sunday. Credit: Jeff Bachner
Melkonian recalled growing up in the shadow of the Cold War, with policies such as “duck and cover” and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
“For almost 80 years, the U.S. and nuclear nations have pursued policies that have led us toward extinction,” she said. “Today globally, nationally and on Long Island, we are demanding nuclear abolition.”
She called on the United States to sign a treaty adopted by the United Nations in 2017 designed to prohibit nuclear weapons. The treaty lacks support from any of the nine countries with nuclear arsenals.
Ralph DeMarco of Riverhead has been involved with the peace group since 1986. He comes to the August event every year.
"It's a sense of peace and social justice," he said.
Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.
