AS regular readers of this column will know, foreign affairs not football writing is my beat. It’s strange then to find myself writing this pegged to “the beautiful game.” Donald Trump of course has a penchant for using the word “beautiful” in almost every other sentence, but thus far things have been less than prepossessing in terms of the way the “Land of the Free” has been handling the World Cup.
But already I digress, for it is Scotland’s opening match opponent nation, Haiti, that I want to talk about here. Over the past decades, I’ve made numerous visits to the troubled Caribbean island and I thought readers of today’s column might like a little reflective take on this turbulent country.
Can I just say from the outset that this is in no way intended to put the fear of God into Steve Clarke’s men, but in four decades of covering the world’s woes, perhaps no other place on the planet has frightened me more than Haiti.
That said, Scotland’s footballers can rest easy on that one, for the Haitian squad is made up almost entirely of players from the country’s diaspora and their French coach, Sebastien Migne, has never visited the country.
In fact, the Haitian team have had to play their home matches overseas and for good reason.
You see, the capital Port au Prince is primarily controlled by criminal gun-toting gangs dominated by a coalition dubbed Viv Ansanm which in Haitian Creole means “Living Together”.
Don’t be deceived by this cosy collective name, because for years before making their bloody pact, the gangs comprising this “coalition” did anything but “live together”.
Killing, raping and looting were their stock in trade in turf wars across this nation of 12 million people.
Don’t be deceived either by the explanation given by the gangs’ reputed leader Jimmy Cherizier, as to why he was given the nickname “Barbecue”.
According to Cherizier’s personal claim, the moniker is a childhood nickname given to him because his mother ran a fried chicken stall in the impoverished slum where he grew up.
But some eyewitnesses and human rights groups attest that Cherizier’s alias stems from “necklacing”, the gruesome practice of tying up a prisoner before dropping a tyre doused in petrol around their shoulders and setting them alight.
Whatever the truth, Cherizier, like the other gang members in Haiti’s current crisis, is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Haitians. Which takes me back to why Haiti ranks as one of the most terrifying places in which I’ve ever worked.
Riots, coups, despots, hurricanes and earthquakes – this, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has seen them all.
One of my earliest visits back in 2004 stands out in particular. It was when the then Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown in a coup.
Years before then, when Aristide had first become the country’s leader, he had disbanded the army and recruited his own enforcers in the shape of the criminal thugs that inhabited the sprawling slums of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
These became known as the Chimeres – the Ghosts. It was during the protests that sought to oust Aristide in the 2004 coup, that the Chimeres were let loose on the streets and the violence and cruelty perpetrated by them and their political opponents haunts me to this day.
Haiti has had no shortage of villains or “big men”, all operating with a wickedness worthy of the worst demons from Haitian voodoo mythology.
For the best part of three decades from the 1950s to the 70s, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son and heir Jean Claude “Baby Doc”, haunted the nation with their brutal rule and secret police force known as the Tonton Macoute.
A nation born out of slavery, Haiti’s people fought for their independence and have had their good guys too in the shape of former slave and stable boy Toussaint L’Ouverture, the man dubbed the “Black Jacobin”, who in the late 1700’s led the revolt that paved the way for Haiti’s independence from French colonial rule.
Even today, the nickname of Haiti’s national football side – Les Grenadiers – pays homage to L’Ouverture’s revolutionaries who gained Haiti’s independence in 1804.
But as some historians point out, with that independence Haiti was subsequently treated as a “pariah nation”, because obviously, at the time, the great powers were all essentially white supremacist states, and Haiti was the first black independent nation.
Subsequently as a result, almost throughout its history since, Haiti’s suffering has gone largely unnoticed.
In fact, whenever I made a visit it always struck me as beggaring belief how such a hell on earth could exist barely an hour-and-a-half’s flight from glittering Miami, and less than three hours from New York City.
If ever a country was due a break, it’s Haiti and its ordinary people, whose hospitality stands in marked contrast to the monsters who have often ruled them.
With that in mind, and if nothing else, here’s hoping Haiti’s presence in the World Cup draws fresh attention to the country in a positive sense. Who knows, it might even help towards bringing about the elusive stability that have seen peacekeeping operations in the country transitioning from traditional, voluntary UN-backed missions to an expanded international “Gang Suppression Force”.
AS equally football mad as the Scots and in a country where about half the population is under 25, Haiti’s national side’s performance will be followed feverishly.
Be it in the Haitian diaspora hubs of Miami and Brooklyn or in the teeming humid slums of Cite Soleil and Saint Martin – so cramped that “shift sleeping” in tiny shacks is common – Haitians will be behind “Les Grenadiers”.
That old famous Creole rallying call from the anti-colonial revolution days “Grenadye, alaso!” – “Grenadiers, forward/to the attack!” – will be the order of the day.
I do genuinely wish Haiti – long an underdog in so many ways as a nation – all the best in the tournament, but just not against Scotland, please.
