'My war with Bush has not ended yet' -- Akahata 'Current' column, April 4

Speaking from the stage of the March 15 anti-war rally in Tokyo, Japanese photo journalist Morizumi Takashi said he was leaving for Iraq. He was admitted to the country on March 21, the day after the United States and Britain started air strikes against Iraq.

The Baghdad he visited this time was no longer the Baghdad he had known. People who had been helpful to him began to avoid him, a foreigner. Foreigners walking on the streets are looked upon suspiciously, and they are likely to be taken to the police station.

Isolated and helpless, the photographer had to hide himself by changing from hotel to hotel. At one hotel, he encountered a crew from a certain U.S. non-government organization (NGO) which had helped him to give photo exhibitions in the United States. On the fifth day after his entry, he managed to start his work, apparently as a companion of the NGO team investigating U.S. war crimes.

On the seventh day after his entry, the U.S. NGO team was taken to the police for investigating into the damage around a bombed telephone office, not being accompanied by an Iraqi guide. Morizumi was detained for five hours, and then was ordered to leave the country the next morning. An Iraqi foreign ministry official said, "The rules demand that you leave. It cannot be helped. Come again."

There was no choice for Morizumi but to leave the country. On returning to Japan, he sent his quick reports to the Akahata Sunday edition, with photos of wounded children, a bombed hospital, and a cluster bomb scattering mines. His story with photos made during a few days' coverage has the power to expose the lies the U.S. government tells about the war being a humanitarian war.

Morizumi's e-mail on his return home ends with the following sentence: "My war with Bush has not ended yet." (end)