Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05AMMAN6526
2005-08-16 08:42:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Amman
Cable title:  

IN MA'AN, GOJ TRIES TO CHANGE ATTITUDES

Tags:  PGOV PREL ECON EAID JO 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

160842Z Aug 05
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 AMMAN 006526 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/16/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID JO
SUBJECT: IN MA'AN, GOJ TRIES TO CHANGE ATTITUDES

REF: A. AMMAN 5830


B. AMMAN 5451

C. AMMAN 470

D. O4 AMMAN 9226

Classified By: CDA David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 AMMAN 006526

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/16/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID JO
SUBJECT: IN MA'AN, GOJ TRIES TO CHANGE ATTITUDES

REF: A. AMMAN 5830


B. AMMAN 5451

C. AMMAN 470

D. O4 AMMAN 9226

Classified By: CDA David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: Two and a half years after a
failed uprising left six persons dead, citizens
of Jordan's southeastern transportation hub of
Ma'an are still restive. This hardscrabble
desert town is influenced both by surrounding
tribes, and by the many who drifted in to town
and away from tribal society. Some of these have
found new purpose in strong salafist networks.
Ma'an has acquired a reputation for unrest. Its
role in the founding of the Hashemite monarchy
has produced a belief among Ma'anis that they are
particularly entitled to GOJ largesse, and a
corresponding propensity to rise up when they
feel they have been taken for granted by the
government. Like many other East Bankers,
Ma'anis view the rise to power of the Amman-based
Palestinian merchant class, and the reduction of
the state's role in Jordan's economy, as a
betrayal of their birthright. These attitudes,
however, are slowly starting to change, thanks in
part to the influence of Ma'an's rapidly-
expanding Al Hussein
University. END SUMMARY.

--------------
A DISTINCT IDENTITY
--------------


2. (C) Ma'an, which originated as a resting place
on the Hajj route, is a crossroads town that
entered the modern era as a stop on the Ottomans'
Hijaz Railway, linking Istanbul with the Muslim
holy city of Medina. In 1921, soon-to-be Emir
Abdullah I, Jordan's first Hashemite ruler,
disembarked from a train car with his retinue and
temporarily set up court in Ma'an before moving
north to Amman with the support of the southern
tribes. These tribes - particularly the
Huwaytat, who dominate the area surrounding Ma'an
- would go on to form the backbone of Jordan's
Arab Legion. While the tribes of the Ma'an
region share some characteristics with those
elsewhere in central and southern Jordan, they
have unique songs, dances, and folklore and an
intense independent streak. One former
government minister noted to poloff, "Almost

every boy in the Ma'an area receives a gun on his
twelfth birthday and it becomes his most prized
possession." A city long known for its Muslim
piety (a result of the Hajj traffic),Ma'an
maintains strong ties with Saudi Arabia, where
many Huwaytat also live. (Note: Riyadh asserted
a claim to the region for several decades, and
rumors still circulate that the Saudi government
pays subsidies to Ma'an-area sheikhs. End Note.)


3. (C) Despite its historical link with the
Hashemite monarchy, the unique character of Ma'an
has contributed to its long-standing sense of
detachment from the government in Amman. More
recently, the city has earned a reputation for
restlessness. In April 1989, there were serious
riots in Ma'an over a 30 percent increase in fuel
prices, demanded of Jordan as a condition of an
IMF bailout. After the rioting spread to other
cities, King Hussein decided to reopen Jordan's
parliament after almost thirty years in abeyance.
Operation Desert Fox spurred minor clashes in
Ma'an in 1998, and Ma'an again erupted in
November 2002, after police tried to interrogate
a Ma'ani extremist in the aftermath of the
assassination of USAID official Laurence Foley.
The clashes between armed extremists and police
left six people dead, including two police
officers, and many others wounded. (Note: The
extremist whose attempted arrest sparked the
riots, Muhammad Ahmed al-Shalabi aka Abu Sayyaf,
was finally captured in September 2003 after a
ten-month manhunt and is now on trial, along with
his alleged accomplices, for their role in the
violence - ref C. End Note.) When the GOJ
recently announced fuel price hikes of 30% and
more (ref B),many in Jordan's political classes
predicted new unrest in Ma'an. So far, there has
been no trouble in Ma'an or elsewhere in Jordan.
This is due, we believe, to the Jordanian
security services' careful preparations.

--------------
PERCEPTIONS OF BETRAYAL
--------------


4. (C) At first glance, Ma'an seems an unlikely
breeding ground for discontent. A city of
100,000, Ma'an compares favorably with most
Jordanian towns its size. The level of evident
poverty is no worse than can be seen in any other
Jordanian provincial city, and some of Ma'an's
villas would not look out of place if
transplanted to affluent West Amman. Poverty
statistics confirm this impression: Ma'an
governorate's rate is far from the worst in
Jordan, and while GDP per capita is not as high
as in many other governorates, that measure
excludes income earned by Ma'anis staffing the
GOJ civil service, the Jordanian Armed Forces
(JAF),and security services outside of the
governorate - much of which is transferred back
to Ma'an, as the high-end villas show. Islam and
tradition are still the most significant
influences on the city's life, but women on the
city streets do not seem more conservatively
dressed than elsewhere in Jordan (outside of West
Amman). Similarly, the hostility in Ma'an to
Israel and the U.S. are certainly not unique in
Jordan.


5. (C) The paradox of Ma'an, say professors at
the city's al-Hussein University, is that the
recent unrest in the city stems directly from
Ma'anis' long-standing belief that the Hashemite
regime owes them a special debt because of the
surrounding tribes' supposedly central role in
the foundation and survival of the monarchy.
Throughout the history of Jordan, the regime and
the southern tribes have, it is true, had an
implicit bargain: the tribes were given
government jobs and palace bribes in return for
their support (occasionally armed, though in
recent decades merely political) of the
government and the royal family. However, the
catalyst for Ma'an's more recent outbreaks of
violence, say these professors, has been the
perceived failure of the regime to keep its side
of the bargain. The stagnation of the government
sector, to which the GOJ is trying to add as few
jobs as possible, and a slowdown in the trucking
industry, which Ma'anis claim has not been the
same since the 1991 Gulf War, have left Ma'anis
feeling betrayed. Ma'anis also believe that
their historical position of favor has been
usurped, even in the south, by an Amman-based,
Palestinian-dominated commercial elite. This
belief has only been furthered by the GOJ's drive
to privatize state-owned companies that
previously hired disproportionately (given
relative skill levels) from the south, and by the
establishment of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone,
which has moved the focus of development in the
south away from Ma'an and whose leadership
includes prominent West Amman Palestinian-
Jordanians.


6. (C) Another factor in Ma'an's chronic
discontent stems from the transient nature of
much of its population. For many of those who
have drifted into Ma'an over the past generation
(for instance in the large trucking industry)
town life has worked them loose from the tribal
system, and from that system's controls on
behavior and politics. Much as in Zarqa (ref D),
some of these detribalized people have found a
sort of surrogate extended family in the Islamic
revival. In Ma'an, that revival has been heavily
influenced by salafism, and by the wahabism of
neighboring Saudi Arabia.

--------------
SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT
--------------


7. (C) Anger and mistrust in Ma'an towards the
King's policies and advisors are everywhere
apparent, reinforcing mistrust of Palestinian-
Jordanians. A meeting between emboffs and the
Ma'an Chamber of Commerce - which was arranged to
discuss the health of the region's economy -
briefly demonstrated this tension and how it is
displaced onto convenient foreign scapegoats.
Turning to economic subjects for the first time
in the Chamber's hour-long diatribe on the
alleged faults of U.S. foreign policy, a Chamber
member noted that U.S. economic assistance was
being diverted from "real Jordanian needs" to the
bank accounts of technocrats in Amman, and that
the U.S. was aware of, and therefore complicit
in, this corruption. He was quickly cut off by
another member, who stated that rumors of aid-
related corruption were lies, spread by Israel to
stop donor countries from giving assistance to
Jordan. Heated intramural debate followed, ended
only by the return of the conversation to the
USG's alleged abuses and mistakes in Iraq.

--------------
BUYING THEM BACK
--------------


8. (C) It will be no easy task to shore up
Ma'an's support for a monarchy that now
emphasizes reform and openness, but the GOJ is
certainly giving it a try. In the aftermath of
the 2002 rioting (as well as a highly critical
report published by Jordan's Center for Strategic
Studies that blamed the government for its poor
handling of that crisis),the GOJ seems to have
decided to spare no expense where Ma'an is
concerned. It is shoveling industrial
development projects in the city's direction at
the highest rate in decades (ref A),but the
flagship of the GOJ program is clearly Ma'an's
Al-Hussein University, the area's first and only
institution of higher learning. The 5,000-
student school, founded as a branch of Kerak-
based Mu'ta University in 1996 and made
independent only in 1999, was moved at the end of
2004 to a sparkling new JD 24 million ($34
million) campus on the edge of town - the first
of three stages in a planned JD 60 million ($85
million) facility.


9. (SBU) The university, which plans to double
its enrollment by 2008, is furiously training
professors - drawn almost exclusively from the
three southern provinces of Ma'an, Tafila, and
Aqaba - at overseas universities, in addition to
sending over 100 students every year on
scholarship programs to study abroad. Offering
heavily subsidized basic tuition to students
overwhelmingly from the south, the university
still finds that it must provide financial aid to
a large percentage of its students - and the GOJ
has given it the resources to do so. Given GOJ
budget constraints, the amount of money poured
into the university represents a clear commitment
by the GOJ to promote change and development in
Ma'an.

--------------
CHANGING THEIR OUTLOOK
--------------


10. (SBU) According to university administrators
and professors, the school has already had a
noticeable effect on the larger community. In
contrast to the university's founding, when area
residents protested against co-educational
classes and viewed the university as a threat to
their traditional culture, Al-Hussein University
is now recognized as an integral part of Ma'an
and most citizens see it as directly connected to
their own interests. Mixed-gender classes no
longer raise many eyebrows and tribal fathers who
once saw no need for higher education for their
daughters are now encouraging them to study at
the university (roughly 65% of the students at
al-Hussein are female). In 1994, only 3.4% of
Ma'anis held bachelor's degrees, but this figure
had increased to 10.3% by the end of 2003. Many
of these recent college graduates are from low-
income families, and could not have afforded to
study elsewhere.


11. (SBU) In addition to changing the outlooks
and attitudes of Ma'anis, the university is
having an economic impact. Student spending is
supporting new consumer businesses and the city
is physically growing in the direction of the
university. While many southerners still resist
looking for jobs outside the public sector, the
school is producing graduates with information
technology and other skills that are actually
needed by private industry, and who may even
start their own small businesses. In recognition
of the currently limited job opportunities in the
area, the university is trying to develop classes
that will help students find employment in the
few "bright spots" in the regional economic
picture, including courses related to tourism,
hotel management, mining, environmental
engineering, and archaeology.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


12. (C) Restive attitudes among Ma'anis reflect
both historical aloofness toward outside
regulation of their affairs, and a change in the
needs of the monarchy and the GOJ. Loyal tribal
troops from the area are no longer a priority
need for the government as in earlier days, when
the country faced threats from the forces of
secular Arab nationalism; the newer GOJ
priorities of growth, development, and reform are
here to stay. Closing the gap between Ma'an and
the GOJ will therefore be a challenge. As Jordan
advances reforms, some conservative elements will
be left behind -- unfortunately, sometimes
concentrated in pockets like Ma'an. Despite
significant levels of state spending and much
intelligence work, the city is likely to remain a
breeding ground for extremists.
HALE