Jordan jitters over swelling Syrian refugee influx

King Abdullah's domestic woes worsen as one of region's most stable nations faces fresh wave of cross-border tremors

Syrian refugees arrive at the Zaatri refugee camp in Mafraq on the Jordanian border, north-east of Amman. Photograph: Majed Jaber/Reuters

 

Events in Syria are now causing real nervousness in neighbouring Jordan. Seventeen months into the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, the flow of refugees across the Hashemite kingdom's northern border is touching a raw nerve: the fear that another influx of needy foreigners will upset the country's much-vaunted stabilty. That's closely linked to the serious financial and logistical burden for a small and aid-dependent country that is already facing severe shortages of water and electricity.

Palestinians flowed in after 1967, when Israel captured the West Bank. Iraqi refugees followed in the wake of the wars of 1991 and 2003. Now 130,000 Syrians – though only 30,000 of them are registered — are living across Jordan, many of them in cramped rented accomodation.

Last week, the sheer numbers — said to be some 2,000 people a day — overcame official reluctance and the first refugee camp was set up near Mafraq, courtesy of the UNHCR. According to one confidential government estimate reported by al-Hayat, as many as 1 million Syrians could eventually come and up to 20 more camps may be built.

King Abdullah, like his father Hussein before him, is used to having to accomodate more powerful and often troublesome neighbours. The 1994 peace treaty with Israel, although unpopular, remains a cornerstone of his regime and the guarantee of a special, though low-profile, relationship with the US. Abdullah has not repeated his call last year for Assad to quit, and has resisted attempts by the Saudis (key contributors to his budget) to funnel arms to the Syrian rebels.

The Syrian MiG pilot who defected to Jordan last month was immediately granted asylum. (The information he brought with him is said to have been very useful to western intelligence agencies who value the work of their Jordanian colleagues). But there is also evidence that Syrian dissidents have been returned to Assad's brutal secret police.

Information collated by Human Rights Watch also suggests that Palestinians fleeing the violence in Syria have been turned back at the Jordanian border in the name of preserving the kingdom's ever-sensitive demographic balance.

The tremors from Syria are adding to rumbling over domestic issues. Jordan has managed the unrest of the Arab spring more deftly than most — not least in allowing demonstrations to take place without the use of lethal force, and also by repeating long-standing promises of reform.

Still, Abdullah's timetable for limited political change has not convinced his critics, whose expectations have risen as their criticism of the monarchy has become bolder. The king is also having unaccustomed problems with his most loyal constituency, the east Jordanian tribes, as the cash to pay for public sector jobs for their boys runs out.

In private Jordan's western friends are becoming increasingly nervous about the slow pace of change and the prickliness of the palace in the face of opposition. The latest blow is the decision by the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, to boycott the parliamentary elections the king had promised would be held by the end of the year — unless the new electoral law is made fairer and more inclusive.

Now postponement looks likely. Escalating violence in Syria, refugees pouring across the border and political impasse at home all make for a troubling combination.