STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY Although Uganda did not accept the recommendation to apply the “ceased circumstances” clause for Rwandan refugees, the status of approximately 15,000 Rwandan refugees in Uganda may have become more vulnerable; yet they are unwilling to return, on various grounds.300 There is significant political opposition to the possibility of their acquiring Ugandan citizenship. The children of refugees do not acquire citizenship based on birth in Uganda, even if they are from a community listed in the constitution. Thus, although “Banyarwanda” was listed as one of the “indigenous communities” of Uganda in the 1995 constitution (a controversial decision in the immediate aftermath of the Rwandan genocide) on the grounds that a substantial number of Banyarwanda were included in Uganda by colonial boundaries,301 children of Rwandan refugees are not attributed Ugandan citizenship at birth. In practice, it is very difficult for officials to distinguish between those who are descendants of Rwandan refugees and those who are Ugandan Banyarwanda. The same is true of Acholi and Kakwa who have fled from South Sudan, and others who are members of cross-border communities. In October 2015, the Uganda Constitutional Court confirmed the interpretation that refugees are not eligible to register as citizens under the easier provisions for acquisition of citizenship provided in the constitution. The Court did, however, state that, although interpretation of the Citizenship and Immigration Control Act was outside its jurisdiction, refugees in principle should be eligible for naturalisation—a more discretionary procedure than registration—under the act.302 However, no refugee is known to have been naturalised, except for those married to Ugandans. Refugees approaching the office of the Immigration Department are turned away and told that they are not eligible to apply.303 The distinction between refugee and migrant is not always clear. During the mass registration process for the new national identity card in 2014, when registration and naturalisation for citizenship were combined with the process of registration for identification, some long-term refugees who never registered as such may have successfully registered as citizens on the basis of long term residence. For example, on Lake Albert, many who fled from conflict in the 1990s in Ituri Province on the Congolese side of the lake did not register as refugees or move to refugee camps and are fully integrated into the communities around the lake; the other side of the lake was at one time also part of the Bunyoro kingdom. These long-staying and unregistered refugees were, it seems, largely permitted to obtain Ugandan identity cards during the registration process, but more recent arrivals and those in the camps were not.304 Others were introduced to the vetting committees by members of the local population as effectively being members of their community; those who arrived in Uganda even earlier, in the 1960s, are integrated in farming communities and simply considered Ugandan. 300 See generally, Marshall Godfrey Alenyo, “International Refugee Law and the Right to Nationality: Legal Responses to the Rwandan Refugee Crisis in Uganda”, LLM Dissertation, University College Cork, October 2014. International Refugee Rights Initiative, “A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda”, June 2010. 301 In 1991, it was estimated there were 450,000 indigenous Ugandan Banyarwanda, 650,000 economic migrants, and 84,000 refugees. Figures cited in Catharine Watson, Exile from Rwanda: Background to an invasion, US Committee for Refugees, 1991. 302 Centre for Public Interest Law and another v. Attorney General of Uganda, Constitutional Petition No. 34 of 2010. 303 Interviews, Office of the Prime Minister and Refugee Law Project, Kampala, August 2016. 304 Interviews, Kaiso, Lake Albert, 4 August 2016. Those Congolese who had not obtained Ugandan ID cards were, from July 2016, being charged USh 2 million for a fishing licence (US$ 485), whereas those with cards paid USh 5,000 (US$ 1.5), making the distinction of great immediate importance. UNHCR / September 2018 71