STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY other mass expulsions, including of the Kenyan Luo and other East African workers in 1970,282 and of the Banyarwanda in 1982-83.283 As in other Commonwealth countries, the principles in place on the transition to independence continue to have an important impact on access to Ugandan citizenship today. Although the 1995 Constitution completely reformulated the principles on which citizenship is based, it also provided that those who were already citizens of Uganda remained so.284 Uganda had repealed the jus soli provisions for those born after independence as early as 1967285 to create a descent-based regime; the 1995 framework re-establishes jus soli citizenship, but only for members of “indigenous communities” listed in the third schedule to the constitution. These rights based on birth in Uganda provide significant protection against statelessness, for those who can claim to be members of those groups. For this reason, the Nubian community in Uganda, for example, which is included in the list in schedule 3, does not have the same problems in relation to citizenship as the Nubians in Kenya (though they are still subject to discrimination). But the ethnically-based approach also increases the risk of statelessness for members of other communities not listed in the constitution; this includes the very different Somali and Maragoli communities discussed below, as well as the Asians (who argued unsuccessfully to be listed as “indigenous” on the grounds that Asians were present in Uganda in 1926), and a small group of mainly mixed-race descendants of Polish refugees settled in Uganda by the British during the second world war.286 The ethnic basis for citizenship does not fully protect even members of those groups who are listed. For example, the Kuku community, who are listed in the constitution, are mainly found in South Sudan and are regarded by most Ugandans as, in fact, South Sudanese. Members of this group face additional vetting and difficulties in obtaining Ugandan passports. Moreover, the fact that citizenship by registration or naturalisation does not transmit to the next generation means that the children of those who were registered or naturalised during the mass registration process for the new national identity card during 2014/15 will, at least in theory, not acquire citizenship at birth. Until the introduction of the new national identity card, it was only on application for a passport that a person would find out that he or she was not considered to be Ugandan. While the national identity card is still enrolling new applicants who were missed in the original registration drive, there is a possibility that more people come to face the same problems. There is a complaint system to address cases of people whose nationality is questioned, but this procedure is administrative rather than judicial, and does not include a specific process to identify stateless persons and provide them with access to Ugandan citizenship or other protection. Children of Ugandan Asian “returnees” The child of a person who obtains Ugandan citizenship by registration or naturalisation does not him or herself obtain citizenship as part of the same process; nor does the child born after the parent acquires citizenship automatically obtain citizenship at birth. There is a group of children whose parents are Ugandan Asian “returnees”, who have been brought up and some even born in Uganda, yet are not citizens of Uganda. Some of these may also be stateless, given that their parents may have renounced another citizenship in order to reacquire Ugandan citizenship by registration before dual citizenship was permitted following 2005 282 Ali Mazrui, “Casualties of an Underdeveloped Class Structure: The Expulsion of Luo Workers and Asian Bourgeoisie from Uganda”, in William A. Shack and Elliott P. Skinner (eds.) Strangers in African Societies, University of California Press, 1979. 283 Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 160. 284 Constitution of Uganda, 1995, as amended in 2005, Article 9. The 1967 Constitution similarly preserved the status of those who acquired citizenship at independence. 285 Constitution of Uganda 1967. 286 Input at Arusha workshop, 20 March 2017; for background, see “When Europeans Were Refugees In Africa”, New African Magazine, 20 June 2012. 68 UNHCR / September 2018