The Match a Symbol of Peace and Reconciliation

AFP

Originally: Football fiesta aims to put Haiti on path to peace

Football fiesta aims to put Haiti on path to peace
19 août 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Brazil’s world champion soccer stars got a hero’s welcome here as they brought a message of peace to Haiti, but they still whomped the impoverished Caribbean nation’s team 6-0 in a good-natured match highly symbolic for the Haitian people.

Without breaking a sweat, the Brazilians dazzled the awe-struck home team with three first-half goals, by Roger, Ronaldhino and Milmar.

Though the Brazilian and Uruguayan presidents were in town for the match and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (news – web sites) sent a special message, Haitians packed the streets of the capital to get a glimpse of Brazil’s World Cup champions.

The top players took time off from preparations for the new European season to take part in what had been billed as a “peace match” between Haiti’s strife-ravaged national team and the Brazilian champions.

Haitians love football and idolise the Brazilian team almost as much as they do their own.

They went wild as Brazilian stars Ronaldo, Ronaldhino and Roberto Carlos hopped up on tanks and armored military vehicles for a pre-game parade through the capital to the newly renovated 13,000-seat Sylvio Cator Stadium.

Presidents Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Bonivace Alexandre of Haiti were on hand, with the Brazilian head of state calling the day “a historic day in relations between Brazil and Haiti.”

Brazil is currently leading the UN peacekeeping force seeking to return order to the country from the chaos after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and fled on February 29.

With gang violence still widespread, a major security operation was put in place for the match at the Sylvio Cator stadium in Port-au-Prince.

Brazilian troops were on patrol inside and outside the stadium, which is almost 50 years old but which was renovated and has had an artificial turf pitch laid for the occasion.

General Augusto Heleno, the Brazilian chief of the UN force, made an appeal for calm in the hours before the match.

Despite a UN force and police presence, several people were injured in a crush by hundreds of fans to get some of the tickets released on Tuesday.

But on Wednesday, crowds of young fans dressed in the Haitian and Brazilian national colours appeared to worry more about seeing Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, who were to make an appearance on the streets before the match started.

Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has called the event “a match for peace”.

Latortue, who heads the interim government named after Aristide left, told AFP “the real value of this match is that it is a symbol of the peace and national reconciliation that we are looking for.”

He called on Haitians to use the match to “meet together whatever their political affiliation.”

The Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said it was an “historic day” in relations between the two countries. He highlighted the “shared African roots” of the two countries. The Uruguayan leader, Jorge Batlle is also visiting Haiti.

The UN chief recorded a special video message played before the match in which he said everyone thanked the Brazilian footballers and soldiers “for giving their time and talent so generously, and helping Haiti in this difficult time in its history.”

“Play for peace,” Annan declared in the local creole language.

The match had no competitive importance.

Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira left five European-based stars whose clubs would not release them for the Haiti game out of his squad.

Dida, Cafu and Dada of AC Milan and Lucio and Ze Roberto of Bayern Munich were all ordered by their clubs not to go to Haiti.

Brazil faces Bolivia on September 4 for a World Cup qualifying match.

Football is the main sport in Haiti, which qualified for the 1974 World Cup finals in Germany but has since suffered badly from the country’s years of political crisis.

A new Haitian Football Federation headquarters and training centre was opened in April 2002, but have since been ransacked and destroyed.