:: FEATURE

Mad in Baghdad
A pro-peace activist reports on Iraq before the bombs.

"This country is now your country!" said the Iraqi to the American.

No, not Bush's dream, but a real encounter I had last month in Baghdad.

Iraq is a hard sell for the tourist industry at any time - sand and sunshine alone don't make a paradise.

But the country has never seen so many non-combatant visitors as earlier this year.

I joined hundreds of peace-niks just before the war, hoping to focus a little global media attention on the ordinary people of Iraq.

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Hundreds of activists had gathered in Baghdad in March.

The view from the 'Hilton'

If there hadn't been so many foreigners running around, maybe the government could have handled us.

But peace protesters had been swarming in for months and restraints were surprisingly loose.

I found out later that taking photos from 10th story hotel rooms was a big no-no.

Ooops.

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Ba'ath Party officials speak to the activists.

The government provides minders for every group of visitors, like the ones surrounding us in the auditorium as we listened to a Ba'ath Party official and other governmant cheerleaders give their side of the story.

Their job, besides applauding loudly and censoring our photographic urges, was to ensure we didn't meet too many regular people.

That the voice of the Iraqi people was considered so dangerous to both sides of the war debate speaks volumes.

Activists ran through the streets.

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Taking our message to the streets of Baghdad generated mixed reactions.

Most Iraqis were supportive and many were perplexed, and some greeted us with chants along the lines of "we will spill our blood for Iraq".

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The Sheraton Hotel, bottles of Pepsi, Hollywood DVDs and even US Navy icon Popeye dispelled the idea that anti-Western sentiment is the only one Iraqis can feel.

Popeye on TV in a typical Iraqi home.

Neither hotel nor cola have any relationship to the real American brand any more, and the DVDs probably don't boost Hollywood coffers, but they do counter the media images of Iraqis thinking that American people and culture and its military action are inseperable.

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A makeshift sign marks an unexploded shell.

Some evidence of the previous conflict stands out a mile - some is less obvious.

The metallic object in the middle of the patch of earth is the top of an unexploded cluster bomb, and the rocks and bottle are a makeshift warning.

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The Amriya shelter where 400 Iraqi civilians apparently died during the last Gulf War.

The Amirya shelter was bombed by the US during the last war, apparently killing over 400 people.

One bomb apparently blasted the hole open for another to fall through and incinerate everything inside.

At the time, US officials said that intelligence reports suggested it housed a military command-and-control facility.

It was one place the Iraqi government were more than happy for us to visit.

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Doctors say cancer rates have spiked dramatically in areas where depleted uranium rounds were used.

An English-speaking doctor showed us x-rays that confirmed the development of cancer in a patient who has probably just a few months to live.

She had not yet been told.

Doctors say cancer rates have spiked dramatically since the first Gulf war.

Birth defects, they claim, have increased tenfold in certain areas.

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A man in Basra, where depleted uranium rounds were used, holds his disabled daughter, born since the last Gulf War.

In the Children's Cemetery - one of many in Basra - this man approached us carrying his 10-year-old daughter.

The girl's severe mental and physical disabilities are, he suspects, as the result of radiation from depleted uranium munitions damaging his sperm.

He told us of many other former conscripts with similar stories.

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Origami - a hit with Iraqi kids.

Despite the lack of school supplies, we found children like those the world over; little bundles of bubbling curiosity under thin shells of shyness.

Origami was all it took to win them over.

The children, say their teachers, do not understand the idea of war well, but absorb the fear they see on their parents' faces.

In school, teachers struggle to free the children's minds from anxiety and stress.

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Statues point toward Iran.

Statues line the west bank of the Tigris, all of them pointing east toward Iran - a reminder of the time when Iran was the great peril and Iraq the West's good guy.

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Protests and relief work in Japan:

In Tokyo on March 21st, thousands of people marched in protest against the war in Iraq, 50,000 according to organisers World Peace Now - an umbrella organisation of 33 NGOs including Amnesty International Japan, Greenpeace Japan, Oxfam International Japan, and Peace Boat.

The conflict in Iraq continues to spark huge protest marches around the world.

Many of the organisations are now turning their attentions to relief efforts such as those by Oxfam International, but further protest marches are planned, including one in Tokyo on Saturday April 5th starting at Yoyogi Park.

For more information on relief work and other peace rallies, check the following URLs:

www.worldpeacenow.jp

www.peaceboat.org