The Killing Fields: Political Violence on the Soccer Pitch

Soccer is often seen as a tool for conflict resolution. During World War I, German and British soldiers called a “Christmas Truce” and celebrated the holiday by organizing a soccer game between the warring sides. Ivory Coast’s qualification for the 2006 World Cup was seen as helping to heal the wounds of 17 years of Civil War. Yaya Toure said at the time, “Politics means we are divided, but I think football can sort that out.”

While soccer has often helped to heal rifts, soccer fields have also been the sites of political violence. Unfortunately, nearly every example of peace brought about in a stadium can be matched by an atrocity perpetrated on the pitch. Such atrocities have occurred throughout the world. Given soccer’s unrivaled global popularity, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the best and worst of human nature has been witnessed on its fields.

I began writing this post on political violence on the soccer field with a few examples in mind (Afghanistan, Chile, and Rwanda). With just a bit of research have come up with many, many more. I am sure there are examples I have not documented here; I had to stop looking in order to share what I have compiled.

I have broken the examples of political violence on soccer fields into the regions in which they occurred. I want to stress that these are all examples of political violence on the field. We all know about hooligans who bring violence to stadiums, but they are not what I am focusing on here.

Asia

Long before the Taliban gained worldwide notoriety as the hosts of terror network Al Qaeda, it was primarily known for its brutal human rights violations. Chief among these was the public execution of violators of its extreme interpretation of Islamic law. In 1999, a woman named Zarmeena was accused of murdering her husband with a hammer as he slept. Zarmeena was brought to the national stadium and publicly executed on the dirt field, which still had soccer markings. The AP reported at the time:

Zarmeena was taken from the back of a pickup truck that drove into the sports stadium. Two female police officers, both in deep blue burqas, held Zarmeena’s arms. Witnesses said the convicted woman walked slowly, each step followed by a pause. When she reached the center of the field she was ordered by one of the women to sit.

Behind her a young Taliban soldier, his head wrapped in the traditional turban, took aim with his Kalashnikov rifle. But suddenly Zarmeena stood up and tried to flee. A policewoman stopped her and forced her to sit, said witnesses.

The Taliban soldier moved closer and shot her three times.

Afterward from the crowd several people shouted “God is great.”

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan has the full AP report, complete with photos and a video (warning: it’s very gruesome).

After overthrowing the Taliban 2001, the ISAF (Internationl Security Assistance Forces) realized how potent the image of the soccer stadium is. What better propaganda coup than replacing public executions with an actual soccer match? They organized a game in 2001 between an Afghan team and a group of their forces.

Soccer returns to Afghanistan’s National Stadium

The Taliban may have gotten the idea of using stadiums for public executions from the Chinese, who used the tactic for years. Although capital punishment in China is now carried out in private by lethal injection, for years the Communist government used very public ceremonies to execute its criminals.

The Ottawa Citizen reported in 1994 that “In Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, photographs from a September sentencing at a sports stadium were displayed prominently in the city centre for at least two months.” In 1998, 30 people were killed in the soccer stadium in the southern city of Shenzhen. 2001 saw public executions in stadiums, again in Sichuan province. A report by Amnesty International in that same year suggested that mass executions were occurring at the Beijing Workers’ Stadium, which will host games at the 2008 Olympics.

Condemned criminals are paraded before a crowd in a stadium in Chengdu in 2001

East Timor was the site of extreme political violence during the 1990s, as it fought for independence from Indonesia. A soccer stadium in Dili, capital of the former Portuguese colony, was the site of alleged torture by Australian troops sent there to stabilize the country. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2003 that members of an anti-independence militia group “were marched by their Australian Army captors from the Aitarak headquarters in Dili to an empty football stadium. There they were forced into the wasp-infested toilets and had their heads pushed down toilet bowls.”

Africa

Political violence and soccer have been prevalent throughout Africa’s history. In 1979, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on refugees from Angola who claimed that “public mass executions took place frequently at a soccer stadium near the Angolan capital of Luanda.”

15 years later, Rwanda was the site of extreme political and ethnic violence. During the 1994 genocide, 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Many of these murders took place in soccer stadiums. A report titled “A Quantitative Analysis of Genocide in Kibuye Prefecture, Rwanda” lists 4,500 people killed at Kibuye Stadium and nearly 3,500 killed at Gatwaro Stadium. Thousands of others were murdered at stadiums across Rwanda.

Trials against leaders of the genocide led to many death penalty sentences. In 1998, the Globe and Mail reported that the first 33 people convicted of being involved in the genocide were themselves put to death in a public execution in a soccer stadium in the capital, Kigali.

Latin America

One of the most well known instances of political violence occurring in a soccer stadium occurred in Chile. Shortly after seizing power in a military coup, dictator Augusto Pinochet rounded up many thousands of his political enemies and took them to the National Stadium, where they remained for several months. Conditions in the stadium were awful, with torture common. Many murders were also carried out at the stadium. A Chilean commission studying the torture later offered even more details:

• [T]he room for medical treatment was sometimes used for [torture]. Firing squads were simulated and other cruel techniques were employed. As a rule the prisoners were subjected to constant and intense interrogation.
• The representatives and medical representatives of the IRCC (International Red Cross Committee) have found that many prisoners show signs they have undergone psychological and physical torture.
• This Commission also concluded that a number of executions took place inside the National Stadium.

Prisoners stand on the terraces of Chile’s National Stadium in 1973

Chile’s National Stadium, site of the 1962 World Cup final, would return to its sporting roots. The Chilean national team as well as club team Universidad de Chile play their matches there today. There is now a monument to remember the many people who were tortured and killed in the stadium which once served as a concentration camp.

Chile’s National Stadium today

Chile’s neighbor Argentina also had a ruthless military dictatorship in the 1970s that was keen to use soccer to maintain its power. Although no evidence exists that stadiums themselves were used as torture centers like in Chile, the violence in that country could not be hidden when it hosted the 1978 World Cup. The military junta’s policy of “disappearing” its political enemies was known around the world, leading Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff to boycott the tournament. Those players who made the trip to South America may have tried to shield their eyes from the brutal policies of the Argentine rulers, but they were closer than they may have realized to sites of torture in the country.

[N]ear the World Cup stadium there were hidden concentration camps — they were so close that the fans’ shouts of celebration when the Argentine national team scored a goal could drown out the screams of the tortured people.

Europe

The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s lead to a period of brutal violence, as people in the Balkans fought to establish the borders and identities of their newly independent republics. Soccer played a part in sparking the conflict and soccer stadiums often were the sites of violence.

As Franklin Foer documents in his his book How Soccer Explains the World, “a match between Red Star and Dinamo “was the first time in fifty years that Yugoslvia had seen its ethnic groups openly battle one another.” A brawl exploded between fans of the Serbian team (Red Star) and Croatian team (Dinamo), which spilled onto the field itself. As Serbian police beat a Dinamo fan, Zvonomir Boban made himself into a hero of the Croatian people by directly a flying kick at the cop, as seen in this video.

Of the many countries which attained independence during the 1990s Balkan Wars, the one which experienced the most violence was Bosnia. Massacres there have since become well known, especially that which occurred at Srebrenica. Of the nearly 9,000 Bosnian men murdered in that town, many were executed in a local soccer stadium. David Rohde, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who would later win a Pulitzer for his investigation, found that “At a soccer stadium in a nearby town, human feces, blood, and other evidence indicated large numbers of persons were confined, and perhaps shot.”Middle EastIt will probably surprise few that there has been violence in soccer stadiums in the Middle East. The region has both a passion for the game and governments far from averse to using violence.

Soccer in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was controlled his son Odai. The elder son of Saddam tortured many players based on their performances on the field. A 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article depicted some of the brutal practices Odai used to punish players who failed to win matches. Before the games began, the national team would watch videos of Odai preemptively threatening the team if they lost. The threats were very real as the post-game punishments demonstrate:

• A missed penalty kick could bring a humiliating head-shaving at the Stadium of the People.
• Sometimes players were forced to play “matches” in which they would kick concrete balls around the prison yard in 130-degree heat.
• If a player made a number of poor passes, Odai would sometimes call him into the dressing room, where he would be punched or slapped once for every errant pass.
• Another player, Sharar Haddar, has said that Odai dragged him and his teammates over concrete, pulling skin off their backs, then yanked them through a pit so that sand stuck to their raw skin and made them jump in a vat of sewage.

A device used by Odai Hussein to torture Iraqi soccer players

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, soccer stadiums have continued to witness violence. In 2005, the bodies of 19 Iraqi soldiers were found in the town of Haditha’s soccer stadium. A report in last month’s International Herald Tribune found that the threat of violence has kept many away from stadiums. An Iraqi referee was kidnapped last year just after leaving the Shaab Stadium. And this past December, four members of the Al-Zawra team were injured while training in a Baghdad stadium.

Israel’s 1982 incursion into Lebanon is remembered most for the massacres carried out against Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. At least 800 people were killed when the Israeli army, led by then defense minister Ariel Sharon, turned a blind eye as a Lebanese Christian militia rounded up Palestianians in these two camps and executed them. The murders occurred in many places, one of which was the local soccer stadium. The stadium was initially used as an interrogation center, but according to a report by Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk, “28 dead prisoners were discovered on the premises with their hands tied behind their backs.” Thomas Friedman would win a Pulitzer prize for his reporting on the massacre, and he details how soccer stadiums were the sites of torture and murder.

Conflict involving Israel, its Arab neighbors, and soccer fields arose again in April of 2006. The terrorist group Islamic Jihad fired rockets from the Gaza Strip which landed on the Israeli kibbutz of Karmiya. In response, the Jewish state identified the launching pad for these rockets and bombed it. Where did they bomb? A soccer field.

Other Examples

Numerous other examples exist of political violence perpetrated on soccer fields. Amnesty International has a series of reports condemning police forces for brutally cracking down on crowds in stadiums across the world (Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria for example). The 1968 Olympics in Mexico are remembered for the Tlatelolco Massacre, in which 200 to 300 student demonstrators were killed by army of that country. Reporter Susan Bilello described the lead-up to the event, which occurred near one of the world’s great stadiums, which would host the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals.

Ten days later, the lighting of the Olympic torch in Aztec Stadium peacefully inaugurated the first games ever hosted by a developing country. Outside the stadium, troops and tanks were poised beyond the view of television cameras.

The violence in the breakaway republic of Chechnya spilled over into the soccer stadium when Russian-installed president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed while at a stadium in the capital Grozny (only three weeks after Kadyrov’s death, the local team, Terek Grozny, won the Russian Cup). And Haiti’s bid for stability has been interrupted by periodic violence, which has included massacres in soccer stadiums (in July and September of 2006). Even a “Play for Peace” match organized to help stamp out violence in the Caribbean country descended into violence, with at least six people killed.

Soccer fields have been the site of political violence throughout history. Dictators, armies, independence fighters, rebels, terrorists, and even peace keepers have perpetrated unspeakable offenses on the pitch. Ugliness has stained the fields of the beautiful game far too often.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Africa, Asia, Conflict, Ethnicity/Race, Europe, General, History, Latin America, North America, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.