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Port authority
Words and pictures: Bryan Denton

Jordan is the fourth largest provider of troops to UN peace-keeping

missions around the world. There are few places, though, where their
service is more misunderstood – or more dangerous – than Haiti

“If we do not fight against them, the
local government and the UN will tell
us we are not doing an adequate job”
“I
t’s probably better if you put on your armour now,” Private
Awni Rababa’a says before climbing into the unarmoured UN
van used to shuttle Jordan’s military personnel around Port-au-
Prince, capital of the Caribbean island of Haiti. “We’re in a yellow zone,
which means security has improved,” he adds as his bullet clips click
into place, “but up until a few months ago, it was still red, so leaving
the base can be the most dangerous part of our day.”
Armour or not, riding around this war-torn, poverty-stricken island
requires all Jordanian vehicles to be well stocked with weapons. Before
exiting through the gate of the Jordan Battalion (JorBat), rounds are
chambered in M-4 carbines and the signature blue helmets of the
UN are strapped on. On the outside, the faces of young Haitian street
children, most without shoes and few completely dressed save for a few
rags, appear from nowhere asking for “khubis” in their freshly-learned
Arabic. Others put their fingers together in that familiar gesture of
patience and shout the distinctly Jordanian “dagiga”! Some bear large
scars that children under the age of ten have no business having.
Even in the white UN armoured personnel carriers (APCs) – described
by Lieutenant Badarneh, a middle-aged commissioned officer, as
“warrior machines” – city patrols with the Jordanian forces are rapid.
Zooming through the melée that is Haitian street traffic, thousands of
pounds of battle-hardened steel bump over unpaved streets with boxes
of 20mm machine-gun rounds jostling around the oven-hot interior.
The soldiers, most of them wearing mirrored sunglasses, survey the
streets with fingers gently resting on the triggers of their rifles – it is,
for the Jordanian Army here, modus operandi.
Based in a military camp outside the slums of Cité Soleil, a violent
strip of coastal land west of downtown Port-au-Prince, the Jordanian
Army forms an integral part of the United Nations’ peacekeeping
mission in Haiti. Since President Jean Bertrand-Aristide’s high-profile
ousting in February 2004, the island nation has been a scene of extreme
instability, dire poverty and, at times, brutally random violence. Of
all the nations to provide troops, Jordan’s forces, an amalgamation of
regiments from across the country and made up of soldiers from Salt,
Ajloun and Jerash, have arguably the most difficult task of all; cleaning
up the gang-riddled squalour that circles the capital. It was the role
fulfilled by the US Marines before they were withdrawn to serve in Iraq.
The gangsters, or zinglendo as they’re known in the local Creole dialect,
practice targeted killings and kidnappings in the slums of Cité Soleil
and Bel Air, which they control almost unhindered. These slums are
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also the strongholds of the Lavalas, ousted president Aristide’s populist
party. The zinglendo roam the streets openly brandishing firearms, and
until just over a month ago the Haitian police had not entered the Cité
Soleil district since the overthrow of Aristide’s government in 2004. The
Jordanian Army have to counter their influence in the slums, mainly by
effective policing, but occasionally by means that resemble urban warfare.
As one Jordanian major said, “the local population views us as occupiers
due to some of our tactics... Yet, if we do not fight against them, the local
government and the UN will tell us we are not doing an adequate job.”
As a result, the Jordanian soldiers have become a less-than-popular
presence in the city, and have been the subject of increasingly violent
attention since their arrival. In January of 2006, two Jordanian soldiers
were killed and a third wounded in an ambush while manning a
checkpoint in Cité Soleil, and as recently as November 11th this year,
First Lieutenant Ahmad Mohammad Hassan Ba’irat and Corporal
Rami Wasif Taha al-Mohammad were killed while on patrol in Sonapi
– a section of Port-au-Prince where drug trafficking supplements
kidnapping as a principal means of revenue. Tragically, both soldiers
were a matter of weeks away from the end of their six-month
deployment. With the recent casualties, the number of Jordanian

“Strange, eh? Not
much like Jordan”
troops killed while serving the UN in Haiti has risen to nine – the
highest death toll of any contingent serving here.
The ambush came at a time when the relations with the local populace,
and therefore the mood among the troops, was showing signs of
improvement. “It has been fairly quiet these last five months,” says First
Lieutenant Maged Badarneh from within the well-ordered safety of JorBat’s
headquarters. But once again, tension and wholesale suspicion dominate
the exchanges. A private, who wants to be known only as Nader, frequently
mans the JorBat gate and sees many locals from his post, many of whom
come begging for food. Supplies are distributed weekly, albeit mostly
outside of Port-au-Prince in the smaller communities. “I give them bread
sometimes,” he says, quietly. “They have no home or family to feed them.”
In addition to handing out regular supplies of free food, the
Jordanian contingent also operates a complimentary clinic within
the JorBat compound, serving a surrounding community that offers
precious little in the way of direct access to even the most basic of
medical services. The small one-room clinic is run out of a trailer,
where Dr Mohammad al-Shboul, a dentist from Ajloun in northern
Jordan, sees patients daily, assisted by a local builder who has learned
enough Arabic in the past two years to work as a translator.
The illnesses are mainly related to malnutrition, although he
occasionally sees patients with more serious conditions he admits he is
not equipped to handle – AIDS among them. As Dr al-Shboul writes a
prescription, which Haitian patients can fill at the JorBat pharmacy at no
cost, Lieutenant Badarneh motions to the gate, where a patrol is about to
visit a static checkpoint run by Jordanians on the outskirts of Cité Soleil.
The checkpoints prove to be relatively simple affairs. Two white
armoured personnel carriers set up a security “choke” point on either
side of the street, stopping cars to inspect for weapons or simply
providing the psychological effect of an armed presence. “We show
force and, in turn, safety and security improves,” Lt Badarneh says.
“But it is still dangerous. Many of the gangs don’t like our presence
this close to their bases because they feel they are losing territory.”
In the middle of the day, the checkpoint is largely peaceful, with street
traffic flowing smoothly and residents selling an abundance of goods in
the open-air markets that line the street. “You couldn’t even walk down
this street a year ago, and look at it now,” Lt Badarneh adds, with no
little pride, staring down at a fetid road black with raw sewage, where
uncollected garbage spills out in giant lakes. But the dearth of sanitation
services means litter is often burned on the spot, leading to a host of
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gland infections and respiratory issues amongst the population. Still,
compared to 12 months earlier, it’s an improvement of sorts.
After the checkpoint, the caravan of heavy armour continues outside
of Port-au-Prince to the shores of Lake Saumatre. Here, more bundles of
food and back-packs containing school supplies are distributed to villages
with no running water or electricity. The locals clamour around the
trucks to receive the packages, many with armsful of children, shouting
for their place in line as an American NGO worker with sickly bleached
hair and medical scrubs attempts to control the crowd. The food is
sufficient for maybe the rest of the day for a family of three or four. The
Jordanians provide the back-up, some of them leaping from their vehicles,
again mounted with heavy machine guns, to take pictures with miniature
digital cameras – capturing each other and of the bedlam in front of them.
Poverty on this scale is bewildering, even to Jordanians from
communities hardly considered, on a global scale, much more than
impoverished themselves. The cultural differences, though, remain.
Pulling off the main highway heading east towards the Dominican
border, the road gets rougher and, reaching the outskirts of a village,
Private Awni’s eyes are transfixed on the communal well, where local
women are bathing half naked. “Strange, eh? Not much like Jordan,” one

“It’s not that bad. Last week we
got to play football with the
Brazilian troops. We beat them 2-0”
of them remarks, completely aware that it is still Ramadan and looking
upon such scenes is considered more of an offense than usual.
The soldiers talk guardedly about their deployment, particularly what
they think of the Haitians. They had been given briefings and sensitivity
training in Haitian culture before leaving Jordan, yet their grasp of the
situation still seems basic at best. But most small talk is nipped in the
bud by the senior officers, who step in the minute the soldiers’ talk
becomes too personal. “The Haitians are poor, poorer than many of
us have seen people be before,” says Lt Badarneh, who has previously
served in Sierra Leone. “But it’s our job to try to make the place better
– however dangerous it may be. And it’s not that bad. Last week we
got to play football with the Brazilian troops. We beat them 2-0.”
T he Jordanian barracks at JorBat look much like any office in Jordan.
There are tourist-style posters of Jerash, the Dead Sea and Petra, the
kind seen across the country in hotels and the arrivals area of Amman’s
Queen Alia Airport. There are, of course, an abundance of images of King
Abdullah during military exercises. Behind the main office’s desk, Colonel
Ta’il Adalabieh, commander of Jordan Battalion in Haiti, is a welcoming
host, eager to put a professional spin on the Jordanian presence here. It
is a presence, though, he admits has endured some problems.
He explains that, as peacekeepers and not observers, the Jordanian
troops are permitted to engage if fired upon. There are abundant signs that
the daily operations in the slums have resulted in the use of heavy weaponry
against the gangs, with pock-marked buildings around Cité Soleil bearing
scars from .50mm munitions. As the number of patrols increased in line
with UN orders, many residents began protesting their continued presence.
Rumours have also circulated about heavy-handed tactics and even
arms trading, fuelled in part by the popular belief that the UN was
brought to Haiti merely to uphold a regime that is agreeable to Western
powers. Jordan’s contingent was perhaps already guilty before they
arrived. “We are here to complete a mission,” sighs Colonel Adalabieh,
“not to act as the government. We are soldiers after all. Our orders are
to help provide an environment for peace, for new stability.”
That said, it is true that the Jordanian forces were redeployed over
the summer, transferring from the heart of Cité Soleil to a base on its
outskirts. “Things got changed around,” is the vague explanation from US
Army Major Anibal Mulero, the officer in charge of the Press Information
Office at the UN Military HQ housed in the Christopher Hotel. “The UN
command thought that it was the right decision at the right time.”
Driving back out through the slums the following day, passing
endless downtrodden neighborhoods, the Jordanians are frequently
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greeted with sneers and jeers; their ability to perform their tasks with
maximum efficiency and minimum fuss seems to have greatly offended
the population even out here. Consequently, they tend to be an insular
group, lacking almost any contact with the local population. Language
barriers and cultural differences exaggerate the divide.
The convoy continues at speed, zipping past ramshackle stalls,
small banks and bars, and, later, women on the shorefront bathing
with men in full view. Haitians building homes from stray pieces
of wood, tending livestock or cramming a dozen at a time into
flatbed trucks that serve as service taxis all stare in slightly fearful
wonderment, sometimes outright disgust, at the overt display of
military power cruising through their communities. Then, virtually in
the middle of nowhere, the APCs stop, swivel their turrets in opposite
directions, and set up the now familiar “control” checkpoint.
With the road almost deserted, they maintain the blockade for a
fruitless 15 minutes; its obviously more of an unthreatening place to
demonstrate the mechanics of their work to their camera-wielding
passenger. A few cars finally appear, and they are stopped, inspected, the
drivers’ IDs and licenses momentarily detained. It’s a fleeting annoyance,
but it underlines how far the UN have to go to convince the Haitian
population they are there for their protection.
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If the Jordanian troops appear slightly unsure of the long-term

goals of their work, the Jordanian public is even less in the picture
about their compatriots’ service on the other side of the world. On
the Sunday following the deaths of 1st Lt Ahmad Mohammad Hassan
Ba’irat and Corporal Rami Wasif Taha al-Mohammad, the news was
treated to a cursory 35-word paragraph tucked away in the home
news section of The Jordan Times, filed by the Petra News Agency.
There was no investigative article, no historical analyses or context,
and certainly no profile on the soldiers who lost their lives. Just a brief
mention of the soldiers’ names. Both were misspelled.
Jordan’s soldiers do display a justifiable pride in their commitment to
fulfilling the United Nations’ mission. Unfortunately, the UN’s tactics
have effectively solidified their image as an occupying force. It’s also
unsettling how close the parallels are between this selection of patriotic
troops serving in a place few had heard of before the mission was
announced and the presence of US forces, perhaps similarly unaware
of the history into which they were being plunged, in Iraq. Irrespective
of the goals, occupying forces do not typically fair well in foreign lands.
The most recent Jordanian deaths are a grim confirmation that the
United Nations has lost much of its legitimacy in the minds of many
Haitians – enough to justify the targeted killing of Jordanian soldiers.