JORDAN: Government to Crack Down on Islamic Fundamentalists

• by IPS Correspondents (cairo)
• Sunday, November 13, 1994
• Inter Press Service

CAIRO, Nov 13 (IPS) - Jordan is likely to crack down on Islamic opponents after they voted against making peace with Israel, analysts in Amman said here this week.

The analysts, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, told IPS by telephone that the authorities would probably also come down hard on the Islamic Palestinian movement, Hamas, which has offices in the Jordanian capital. Hamas is opposed to the Palestinian peace deal with Israel.

Last Sunday, the Jordanian parliament voted overwhelmingly to endorse the historic peace treaty after two days of debate. However, 55 out of 79 deputies voted against saying it was a treaty of surrender not peace.

Twenty-four deputies, including 17 of the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF), voted against, saying they would use peaceful means to undermine the accord and sabotage all moves normalising relations between the two former enemies which opened their borders for the first time this week.

Opponents also attacked King Hussein for allowing Israel to continue using two small pieces of Jordanian land, thereby setting a precedent for other occupied Arab lands.

The opposition believes the treaty undermines U.N.-guaranteed rights for 1.1 million Palestinian refugees who fled to Jordan in 1948 when the Jewish state was formed, and a further 700,000 in the 1967 Middle East war -- a charge the government denies.

Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul-Salam al-Majali said the treaty guaranteed that Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would deal with the question of refugees when it came up for discussion scheduled for 1996.

By then, talks on the final status of the occupied territories are due begin, according to the outline peace accord Israel and the PLO signed last year.

Two days after Israel and Jordan signed the treaty on October 26, King Hussein, in an address to army officers, warned opponents to "respect the views of the majority, and here I do not generalise, but specify a certain group". This was a thinly- veiled reference to the powerful Islamic opposition.

IAF spokesman Hamzi Mansour, condemned the treaty as "not compatible with the interests of the Jordanian people...and for this reason we will work to abort it".

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