Agbavor Maurice, 16, saves a shot at a football camp run by former Ivorian national team player Joel Tiehi in the country's main city Abidjan, May 25, 2006.
REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon
Football's dividing and uniting powers, systematic rape could be an early sign of impending genocide, and why there are more internally displaced people and fewer refugees around the world...
Soccer's World Cup tournament kicks off today, and for a mighty big chunk of the planet's population, the excitement borders on delirium. Stock markets will rise and fall depending on match results. Political leaders may find their electoral chances affected by score lines. As Bill Shankly, a former England soccer coach, memorably put it: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death ... I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
In countries divided by war and strife, football really can be a matter of life and death. Several media reports have highlighted the beautiful game's capacity to soothe tensions, heal rifts and instil in people a sense of harmony - at least until the final whistle.
An article today in the Christian Science Monitor lists instances of the sport's power to unify in Africa: how fighting in Liberia stopped whenever national soccer idol George Weah put his boots on, and how civil war in Nigeria came to a halt for two days in 1967 so both sides could watch visiting legend Pele play.
The national football team of Ivory Coast, a country split in two since 2002, has reached the World Cup finals for the first time in the nation's history, and the players haven't wasted the chance to plead the cause of unity, according to this BBC story. "We have a real responsibility, because our country is at war," the BBC quotes Arsenal defender Kolo Toure as saying.
Lomana LuaLua, captain of the Democratic Republic of Congo national team, has often said in interviews that just about the only time fighting stops in Congo is when football is on the box. The Portsmouth striker has even risked his life to play matches on home soil, defying death threats against family members in a bid to offer some welcome entertainment in a country where war has claimed 4 million lives.
Of course, it sometimes works the other way too. A football match famously triggered a "soccer war" between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969, and it's not only English hooligans who have been known to draw violent inspiration from the sport's tribal rivalries.
But on the whole, football's salutary reputation is well deserved and over the next month millions will throw themselves headlong into the planet's biggest party.
Sadly, many survivors of Indonesia's Java earthquake won't be joining them. According to an Agence France Presse article today, some survivors say missing out on watching the World Cup is the final straw after weeks of unimaginable suffering. It would "maybe make me forget my pain", says one survivor whose TV was destroyed by the quake.
This sounds pretty trivial but it's really no joke. Football often plays a role in helping communities heal after disasters, and more than a few charities and aid agencies have enlisted football stars in their efforts.
Expect to hear about a lot of football-related initiatives in coming weeks. Here's one from British relief group Mercy Corps called "YES to Soccer", which aims to bring African kids onto the football pitch to learn about HIV/AIDS. "The idea behind 'YES to soccer' is to use role models who young people trust - like soccer players and coaches - to confirm what they're hearing about AIDS and integrate it into their behaviour," says Mercy Corps AIDS programme officer Jessica Quarles.
In Liberia, about 3,000 people are involved in the programme. Meanwhile in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley spanning the borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Mercy Corps is using football to defuse ethnic tensions by sponsoring youth leagues. Does it work? It certainly can't hurt, and just maybe some of these projects will spawn a future World Cup star ...
***
A new campaign group to help the victims of rape in war will not just support women who have been sexually abused but could alert the world to potential genocide, its founders say.
The Alliance for Direct Action against Rape in Conflict and Crises (AllianceDARC) is being launched in Geneva on Friday.
The behaviour of totalitarian regimes and their agents towards women of a specific ethnic group can be an early sign that an entire group of civilians are being targeted, according to the Aegis Trust, which campaigns to prevent genocide and is a founding partner of AllianceDARC.
"It may be that rape and derogatory attitudes towards women can alert us that an impending crisis may be genocidal in nature," Aegis' chief executive James Smith says.
Rape has been widespread in recent wars such as those in Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Darfur.
The Alliance says its mission is "to bring practical help to women suffering from or threatened by sexual violence in conflict situations, and thereby prevent further such violence".
Aegis says it's vital that those who rape women in conflicts should be brought to account even if they are acting on orders.
"When systematic rape begins, there must be a mechanism to respond swiftly, to ensure that the perpetrators understand they will be brought to account and that they are individually responsible, no matter what instructions they have had from the organisers of these crimes," Smith says.
***
The U.N. Refugee Agency says the main reason why its annual tally of uprooted people in the world has gone up (from 19.5 million in 2004 to 20.8 million in 2005) is due to a rise in the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) - those living in "refugee-like situations within their own countries". The share of IDPs among the total population of concern to UNHCR has now reached the highest level in at least a decade.
At the end of 2005, UNHCR country offices reported 6.6 million IDPs in 16 countries, compared with 5.4 million in 13 countries a year earlier (a 22 percent increase). The report, entitled 2005 Global Refugee Trends, says the increase can mainly be attributed to newly reported IDP situations in Iraq (1.2 million) and Somalia (400,000). The number in Sudan increased from 662,000 to 842,000.
But the IDP situation did get better in some countries, as long-term solutions were found for some displaced populations. Significant improvements occurred in Liberia, where IDPs dropped by 261,000, the Russian Federation (down 164,000) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (down 126,500).
The situation did not change much in Colombia (with more than 2 million IDPs) and Azerbaijan (578,500). Since UNHCR is currently in the throes of boosting its work with IDPs, it expects to report a substantially higher global number of IDPs in the future.
Breaking down the 20.8 million total of uprooted people into different categories:
Refugees - 40.5 percent (a decrease of 12 percent from 2004)
IDPs - 31.9 percent (an increase of 22 percent)
Stateless persons - 11.5 percent
Returned refugees - 5.3 percent
Asylum seekers - 3.7 percent (down 2 percent)
Returned IDPs - 2.5 percent
Interestingly, the global number of refugees is at its lowest level since 1980 - the fifth consecutive year the figure has fallen (over a five-year period, it's dropped by a third). UNHCR chief spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva that the decline is also partly because Western countries have shut refugees out with tighter asylum policies.
But the report says decreases are often the result of refugees finding a lasting solution to their situation, such as choosing to go back to their countries (what's called voluntary repatriation).
This is the case, for example, with Afghan refugees, who make up the largest chunk of the global refugee population (23 percent). During 2005, their number dropped by a fifth, with 751,000 refugees choosing to go back to Afghanistan. This reduced the refugee population in both Pakistan and Iran - the world's top two asylum countries.
Third on the list is Germany, followed by Tanzania and the United States. Interestingly, a recent article in UNHCR's Refugees magazine highlighted how African countries with a history of welcoming outsiders, including Tanzania, now seem to have become less hospitable.
It reports that the Tanzanian government has indicated its tolerance for hosting refugees is wearing thin, and has clamped greater restrictions on refugees' freedom of movement and right to work.
Back to the hard stats: other major countries of origin of refugees that have seen notable decreases in 2005 are Burundi (down 10 percent), Iraq (down 16 percent) and Liberia (down 31 percent) - again reflecting a rise in the number of people returning home to these countries.
On the other side of the coin, refugee nationalities that saw an increase in 2005 include Togolese, Rwandan and Eritrean.
Tim Large, Emma Batha and Megan Rowling
AlertNet
