Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Port authority
Words and pictures: Bryan Denton
“I
t’s probably better if you put on your armour now,” Private Zooming through the melée that is Haitian street traffic, thousands of also the strongholds of the Lavalas, ousted president Aristide’s populist
Awni Rababa’a says before climbing into the unarmoured UN pounds of battle-hardened steel bump over unpaved streets with boxes party. The zinglendo roam the streets openly brandishing firearms, and
van used to shuttle Jordan’s military personnel around Port-au- of 20mm machine-gun rounds jostling around the oven-hot interior. until just over a month ago the Haitian police had not entered the Cité
Prince, capital of the Caribbean island of Haiti. “We’re in a yellow zone, The soldiers, most of them wearing mirrored sunglasses, survey the Soleil district since the overthrow of Aristide’s government in 2004. The
which means security has improved,” he adds as his bullet clips click streets with fingers gently resting on the triggers of their rifles – it is, Jordanian Army have to counter their influence in the slums, mainly by
into place, “but up until a few months ago, it was still red, so leaving for the Jordanian Army here, modus operandi. effective policing, but occasionally by means that resemble urban warfare.
the base can be the most dangerous part of our day.” Based in a military camp outside the slums of Cité Soleil, a violent As one Jordanian major said, “the local population views us as occupiers
Armour or not, riding around this war-torn, poverty-stricken island strip of coastal land west of downtown Port-au-Prince, the Jordanian due to some of our tactics... Yet, if we do not fight against them, the local
requires all Jordanian vehicles to be well stocked with weapons. Before Army forms an integral part of the United Nations’ peacekeeping government and the UN will tell us we are not doing an adequate job.”
exiting through the gate of the Jordan Battalion (JorBat), rounds are mission in Haiti. Since President Jean Bertrand-Aristide’s high-profile As a result, the Jordanian soldiers have become a less-than-popular
chambered in M-4 carbines and the signature blue helmets of the ousting in February 2004, the island nation has been a scene of extreme presence in the city, and have been the subject of increasingly violent
UN are strapped on. On the outside, the faces of young Haitian street instability, dire poverty and, at times, brutally random violence. Of attention since their arrival. In January of 2006, two Jordanian soldiers
children, most without shoes and few completely dressed save for a few all the nations to provide troops, Jordan’s forces, an amalgamation of were killed and a third wounded in an ambush while manning a
rags, appear from nowhere asking for “khubis” in their freshly-learned regiments from across the country and made up of soldiers from Salt, checkpoint in Cité Soleil, and as recently as November 11th this year,
Arabic. Others put their fingers together in that familiar gesture of Ajloun and Jerash, have arguably the most difficult task of all; cleaning First Lieutenant Ahmad Mohammad Hassan Ba’irat and Corporal
patience and shout the distinctly Jordanian “dagiga”! Some bear large up the gang-riddled squalour that circles the capital. It was the role Rami Wasif Taha al-Mohammad were killed while on patrol in Sonapi
scars that children under the age of ten have no business having. fulfilled by the US Marines before they were withdrawn to serve in Iraq. – a section of Port-au-Prince where drug trafficking supplements
Even in the white UN armoured personnel carriers (APCs) – described The gangsters, or zinglendo as they’re known in the local Creole dialect, kidnapping as a principal means of revenue. Tragically, both soldiers
by Lieutenant Badarneh, a middle-aged commissioned officer, as practice targeted killings and kidnappings in the slums of Cité Soleil were a matter of weeks away from the end of their six-month
“warrior machines” – city patrols with the Jordanian forces are rapid. and Bel Air, which they control almost unhindered. These slums are deployment. With the recent casualties, the number of Jordanian
53