Latest news feedRefugees Magazine Issue 147 ("The Excluded: The strange hidden world of the stateless") - Africa's hidden problem
by Cécile Pouilly
Until recently, relatively little attention had been paid to the problem of statelessness in Africa. But gradually that is beginning to change – not least because of the realization that statelessness has already had a seriously destabilizing effect in some countries, and because there are currently risks of large new groups of people being rendered stateless as a result of political developments on the continent.
Colonial legacy
Many of the borders in modern Africa were arbitrarily established by the colonial powers, and most of the independent states that materialized after the colonial era ended have a spectacular variety of ethnic groups. Some of these have never been formally considered as nationals despite living in a particular country for generations. The possibility of redrawing some of the colonial borders in a more logical manner was considered and dismissed during the 1960s in case it caused more problems than it solved.
The state that is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for instance, has received several waves of migrants and refugees from Rwanda. In addition, a 1910 convention between the successive colonial rulers Germany and Belgium resulted in some areas formerly controlled by the King of Rwanda being annexed to the Belgian Congo, along with their inhabitants.
This group of people, known as Banyarwanda, expanded as a result of subsequent waves of migration after World War I, and the political crises that tore Rwanda apart in 1959, and again during the 1970s.
Since independence, the issue of the Banyarwanda's nationality has been a consistently contentious factor in Congolese politics. They have been repeatedly granted and deprived of their Congolese nationality and have fre-quently become embroiled in competition for land and political power. They have also developed a difficult relationship with the small and crowded neighbouring country with whom they are linked by name and by origin, but not by nationality.
Give and retake
The 1964 Constitution, followed by a Decree Law adopted in March 1971, gave Congolese nationality to all Banyarwanda who had been living in eastern DRC before 1960. However, less than a year later there was a partial U-turn when a new law decreed that Banya-rwanda who had arrived in Zaire (as the country was then called) after 1 January 1950 were not nationals.
In 1981, the legislation was amended once again to the effect that Zairian nationality could now only be granted to Banyarwanda who could prove that their direct ancestors had lived in Zaire since 1885. Since birth registration in the 19th century was – to put it mildly – far from systematic, this resulted in most Banyarwanda having their rights retroactively revoked, leaving them effectively stateless. The massive influx of refugees and fighters into eastern DRC in July 1994, following the Rwandan genocide, reinforced the mistrust between the various ethnic groups and intensified the fierce debate over nationality. This issue was a major factor in the 1996 war and continued to contribute to the chronic instability that has affected this immense country in the heart of Africa (see REFUGEES No. 145 for a more detailed analysis of the situation in DRC).
Recently the situation of the Banya-rwanda has taken a turn for the better: a 2004 nationality law, and the 2005 Constitution, confirmed that Banya-rwanda who can prove they were in the country at the time of independence are, along with their descendants, once again considered citizens of DRC.
The loyalty question
After the 1998 war with Eritrea, the Ethiopian authorities decided to denationalize some of its citizens who had taken part in a 1993 referendum on the independence of Eritrea. It was argued that their participation in the referendum was proof that they belonged in Eritrea, and therefore (since Ethiopia does not permit dual nationality) they were stripped of their Ethiopian citizenship.
Both countries had traditionally hosted large numbers of each other's peoples – some 600,000 people of Eritrean origin in Ethiopia, and about 100,000 people of Ethiopian origin in Eritrea. But, as relations continued to deteriorate, they began deporting some of their own citizens whose loyalties they found suspect. A few people were physically stranded in no man's land for years. Others remained, but effectively became stateless.
Democratic paradox
Ironically, the growing number of elections being held in African states has in some cases inflamed the debate over nationality."The issue of who can – or cannot – vote suddenly matters a great deal," said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative which is running projects to combat statelessness in Africa."As a result, the power to grant, withhold or deny citizenship has become an attractive political weapon."
In Côte d'Ivoire, the issue of national identity (often referred to as 'ivoirité') has been a major factor in the armed conflict that split the once-prosperous West African country in 2002.
For decades, the flourishing Ivorian economy attracted millions of foreign workers from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Guinea to work in cocoa plantations. In many cases they were given the right to own land and even to vote. Pointing out this long tradition of migration and hospitality, President Houphouët-Boigny – who remained in control of the one-party state from 1960 until his death in 1993 – declared: "In this country, we are all foreigners." A 1998 population census showed that 26 per cent of the Ivorian population were officially classified as 'foreigners,' although a large proportion of them had been born on Ivorian soil.
Who is a real citizen?
In the 1990s, a burgeoning economic crisis led to friction between plantation workers of foreign origin and local villagers who had sold or leased them land. The fragile ethnic balance began to splinter and references to ethnicity became a central element of the political debate, revolving around fundamental questions such as "Who is a real Ivorian?" and "Who is entitled to vote in elections or run for office?" Matters began to come to a head when Alassane Ouattara, a northern Muslim of Burkina Faso descent and one of the main political figures, was barred from running for the presidency.
Issues surrounding the immigrant workers were prominent during and after the attempted coup d'état in 2002, with feelings running very high and outbreaks of violence aimed at communities viewed as 'foreign. ' The armed conflict formally ended in January 2003, and the March 2007 Ouagadougou Agreement marked a further important step towards lasting peace. As part of the reconciliation process, the National Unity Government decided to organize audiences foraines – mobile courts which can conduct late birth registrations and issue birth certificates, which can then be used to establish nationality and enable people found to be Ivorian to vote in future elections.
One step forward, one step back
Efforts to address the issue of statelessness are being made in several other African countries, especially through measures to ensure birth registration. But at the same time, as Trevor Ncube points out (see story opposite), some regimes find it difficult to resist the temptation to manipulate nationality issues in order to erase political opposition. Perhaps the best-known example of this was when Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia from 1964 to 1991, was stripped of his Zambian citizenship by his successor in 1995.
Environmental threat
It has long been predicted that climate change, and the ensuing competition for water, would lead to conflict. In Africa, such conflicts are already happening. Increasing competition over natural resources due to the desertification process has led to frictions between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders in the Sahel, especially in border areas where different groups had previously managed to coexist more or less peacefully for many years.
After the Great West African Drought of 1972-1974, the Mahamids – a small nomadic group totalling some 4,000 people – moved from eastern Chad to Niger's Biltine region (around 1,000 kilometres from the border). In the 1980s, more Mahamids left Chad in order to escape the civil war there.
According to a 2001 census carried out in Niger, most of the Mahamids possess an id card issued by the local authorities. However, serious disagreements with local residents over the use of water resources and grazing rights led the central authorities to begin talking about expelling the Mahamids in October 2006 (although they pulled back from fulfilling the threat).
In Mauritania, tensions between pastoralists and farmers went one step further, contributing to the flight of thousands of Mauritanian nationals into Senegal in 1989 – a situation which finally seems closer to being solved through restoration of nationality and voluntary repatriation.
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 147: "The Excluded: The strange hidden world of the stateless"
(September 2007). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (1.8 Mb) here or high-resolution (6.8 Mb) here.
