STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY countries from immigration controls. Mozambican migrants in southern Tanzania, and migrant and refugee communities from Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, were told that they were welcome to stay. Nonetheless, as in most countries, there was unease about levels of immigration. The Refugee Control Act of 1965 required refugees to register and obtain identification cards; however, not all did so. The 1972 Immigration Act was more restrictive, and subjected nationals of African countries to the same requirements as other foreigners. These tensions were reflected in swings in government policy in the following decades.272 With the war for independence and subsequent civil war in Mozambique, and the periodic wars in all three former Belgian territories (Rwanda, Burundi and Congo), the distinction between the descendants of preindependence migrants, more recent economic migrants, and refugees, became ever more unclear. Where refugees were located in specific camps or settlements (as required in principle by Tanzanian refugee law and policy), refugees were more easily identifiable. But in many places refugees became integrated into local communities, and there is no real way to separate one population from the other; in the past, a party membership card was often sufficient for a refugee to “pass” as a citizen when living in urban areas or among a related ethnic group in the border areas.273 The fact that the vast majority of those living in Tanzania had no identity documents—registered refugees being the main exception—made integration at a local level easier to achieve. The issue of certificates following the naturalisation process for refugees (see box below) has provided some of those whose citizenship was in doubt with proof of their status. However, there may be exceptions, leaving people caught between two countries without documents from either. Those “old case load” refugees (including the “self-settled”), and their children, who have not benefited from naturalisation programmes are at great risk of finding themselves stateless as the new national identity card is implemented. Long-term voluntary migrants and their descendants, including those from the pre-independence era, were not offered naturalisation (even though many would be eligible under the usual rules) and are at similar risk. Naturalisation of refugees in Tanzania In 1980, refugees who came to Tanzania from Rwanda and Burundi in 1959 and during the 1960s were given the right to Tanzanian citizenship on a group basis in which normal application procedures and fees were waived. The mass ceremonies in which naturalisation was announced were, however, not followed up with the issue of naturalisation certificates to all those eligible.274 In 2003 the government also announced that it would consider granting Tanzanian citizenship to around 3,000 Somali refugees of “Bantu” origin who had fled persecution by the Siad Barre regime in Somalia and the civil war that followed his fall from power. In May 2005 naturalisation certificates were awarded to the first 182 of around 3,000 people. The Chogo refugee settlement where the Somalis live, in the north-eastern part of Tanzania, has, like the Burundian refugee camps dating from the 1970s, been re-designated as a local authority area. In June 2014, the government held a ceremony of naturalisation for 1,514 people, following a year-long registration process; some 150 of the community preferred to keep refugee status.275 In 2007, Tanzania offered naturalisation to Burundian refugees resident in the country since 1972 and their descendants; of those eligible, 80 percent, or 162,000 people, expressed their desire to remain in Tanzania, and the remaining 20 percent were to receive assistance with repatriation from March 2008. The naturalisation procedure was then stalled when almost complete, leaving thousands in limbo; some of these 272 Miller, “Who are the “permanent inhabitants” of the state?”. 273 Among many works on this subject, see Liisa H. Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania (Chicago University Press), 1995, for an interesting perspective on the impact of such integration on the refugees themselves. 274 Charles P Gasarasi, “The Mass Naturalization and Further Integration of Rwandese Refugees in Tanzania: Process, Problems and Prospects”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 3 No. 2, 1990, pp. 88-109. 275 Lucas Liganga, “We are happy to be back home!” The Citizen (Dar es Salaam), 7 June 2014; Eric Kabendera, “Bantu-Somalis to call Tanzania home”, The East African, 7 June 2014. 66 UNHCR / September 2018