UPV-EHU has signed the Declaration for Peace in Hiroshima, and Rector Bengoetxea has denounced the massacre in Gaza

The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has signed the Hiroshima Peace Declaration on the 80th anniversary of the launch of the atomic bomb in the Japanese city, and its rector, Joxerramon Bengoetxea, has stressed the "importance of the exercise of memory." "The universities are obliged to do what is in our power to prevent it from recurring and forgetting what happened."

Eleven international universities have signed a peace declaration on the HU-Higashisenda campus at the Universityof Hiroshima, including the universities of Tokyo, Leipzig, Taiwan, Malaysia, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the Basque Country.

The manifesto is committed to promoting cooperation between universities to deepen the culture of peace through the exchange of students and researchers.

The rector of the UPV/EHU, in addition to recalling the 88 anniversary of the Gernika bombing , has stressed the importance of the "memory exercise" carried out by both cities in recent decades.

Dictatorship, transition and official disinformation

"It is something that we share in the Basque Country, not only because of Gernika, but because of all the events that followed, in order to combat official disinformation and make visible the hidden historical reality," he said.

Bengoetxea recalled that "the Basques went through dictatorship and also through years of long-term violence".

"Universities are obliged to do what is in our power to prevent it from happening again and to forget what has happened. Universities have a special debt to protect knowledge, research and train our students so that they can work on justice, equity and understanding in their daily lives. " 

In his view, education and research are "fundamental foundations for an equitable and sustainable future, because they foster critical dialogue, feed mutual understanding and contribute to creating conditions for collaboration and coexistence, which are necessary to maintain peace. "

The UPV rector has also attended the Peace Ceremony on the same day and time that the atomic bomb was dropped.