Oregon Public Broadcasting

Two Buddhist monks are organizing peace walks throughout the Northwest over the next two weeks. They're commemorating the 65th anniversary next month of the U.S. dropping nuclear bombs on Japan. Tuesday the monks led about a dozen protesters to the gates of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

In a downtown Richland park, the two monks wear bright ochre robes and New Balance sneakers.

From here the monks march to the place where plutonium for nuclear bombs was manufactured during WWII and the Cold War.

The plutonium in the bomb that blew up Nagasaki came through here.

Gilberto Perez is one of the monks. He says prayer and protest are his only weapons against a nuclear world.

Gilberto Perez: "If we don’t stop it now we may not have any more time on this earth with the pollution and possible war or even accidents like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl."

The monks plan similar marches through the anniversaries of the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.