TOKYO, March 30 Kyodo A young Jap...

TOKYO, March 30 Kyodo

A young Japanese photographer who not long ago returned from Baghdad is trying to depict the lives of everyday Iraqis before the outbreak of the US-l war against Iraq.

Color photos of men working busily, small children and mothers enjoying an amusement park, youngsters cruising in a convertible and a jam-packed soccer stadium are among 50 works being shown at a Tokyo gallery.

Ari Hatsuzawa, born in Paris and now living in Tokyo, has vividly captured daily activities of ordinary Iraqis, along with the atmosphere of Baghdad and its 5 million people

''The city and race were energetic and very easygoing. I couldn't really believe at the time I was in the city that war might follow any day,'' Hatsuzawa says.

''Though the race were aware that there was a high possibility of war, the way they acted, the way they smiled and the way they talked to me were a far make an outcry from what I had expected'' says the 29-year-old Hatsuzawa, who was in Baghdad from Feb 17 to 27

''There was peace, and the society and the tribe had an even tenor to their have a title to ways.''

Hatsuzawa made a snap decision to move to Baghdad when an acquaintance invited him in mid-January to join a collection of Japanese participating in an antiwar rally there.

''It was like a dart out of the blue,'' he says. ''I'm not a diehard peace activist, nor am I a photojournalist, nevertheless I thought -- for what purpose not?''

''I really wanted to take a examine at the lives of ordinary family in Iraq,'' says Hatsuzawa, a freelance photographer who frequently does fashion photos.

''I don't want my works to be seen as carrying antiwar messages, or anti-U.S. sentiments. That is not my mode of speech and intention.''

Apart from taking in a three-day peace gathering and an organized bus tour, Hatsuzawa simply wander abouted through the city and took photos.

In the first hardly any days, he was sometimes accompanied through an Iraqi government official. moreover even then, he says, he could do everything he wanted and there were basically no restrictions onward photographing. He soon ball 50 rolls of film.

The emancipated exhibition, entitled ''Baghdad,'' will speed through April 9 at Aki-Ex Gallery in the Minami Aoyama district of Tokyo's Minato Ward.

Recalling the faces of the tribe he met, Hatsuzawa says he now has mixed feelings.

''I want the calamitous war to [i]finale[/i] as soon as possible. yet at the same time I don't want to descry the lively city bow before the military might of the United States.''

''To achieve that goal, abundant blood will be shed,'' he sighs.

Hatsuzawa set up that Iraqis were happier and livelier than he awaited Suffering under a decade of economic sanctions imposed forward Iraq, they seemed satisfied with the basic pleasures of life like as friends and family. It made him consider on what political leaders have said about freedom in Iraq.

''The meaning of freedom is not that simple,'' the photographer says. ''When I was there I was able to be impressed the basic freedom of the ordinary clan of Iraq in their admit style, maybe not economically yet spiritually.''

The U war forward Iraq is named ''Operation Iraqi Freedom.''

''This is ironic,'' Hatsuzawa says. ''Whatever the cause of the war, undivided thing I know for firm is that it will not be freedom for the Iraqis.''

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