STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY
may have been among the thousands who were expelled from Tanzania in 2013, even though many of them
had been approved for citizenship or were likely entitled to recognition as citizens, based on their birth in the
country.
In 2014, the process of issuing naturalisation certificates resumed, with most of those who had been
approved receiving their new documents during 2015. As of April 2016, 151,019 naturalization certificates
had been distributed and 6,620 applications had been submitted on behalf of children of those naturalised.
UNHCR had assisted 1,850 to appeal a refusal, while over 22,000 Burundian refugees from the 1972 case load
in the Kigoma Region were still in need of naturalization.276 In October 2017, more than 19,000 cases were
still pending.277 However, without prejudice to the ongoing process for this group, President Magufuli
ordered in July 2017 that no further naturalisations be undertaken for other groups of Burundian refugees,
including more recent arrivals.278
Uganda
Uganda’s independence provisions on citizenship followed the standard Commonwealth model. Those born
in Uganda with one parent also born there became citizens automatically. Those who did not fulfil these
requirements but were themselves born or ordinarily resident in Uganda had the right to register as citizens
if they were citizens of the UK and colonies or British protected persons.279 Unlike Kenya and Tanzania,
Uganda did not provide for registration of those originating from other non-Commonwealth African
countries.
Uganda was the site of one of the most widely-publicised episodes of mass expulsion during the postindependence period: the expulsion of the Ugandan Asians in 1971/72. At the time the expulsion was
announced by President Idi Amin, the population of Asian descent recorded in Uganda was just under 75,000,
of whom around one third were Ugandan citizens with no other nationality; the non-citizen population,
including people who had applied to register as citizens, was more than 500,000, mainly Kenyans and
Tanzanians (in a total population of 9.5 million).280 In 1982, a new government passed legislation for the
restoration of confiscated property281 and enabling the return of Ugandan Asians. There have also been
276
UNHCR, Tanzania: Mpanda Operational Update, Special Edition for April 2016. These processes have been quite extensively
documented: Charles P. Gasarasi, “The Mass Naturalisation and Further Integration of Rwandese Refugees in Tanzania: Process,
Problems and Perspectives”, Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 3, No. 2, 1990; Bonaventure Rutinwa, “The Tanzanian Government's
Response to the Rwandan Emergency”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1996, pp. 291-302; James Milner, “Can Global
Refugee Policy Leverage Durable Solutions? Lessons from Tanzania’s Naturalization of Burundian Refugees”, Journal of Refugee
Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, 2014, pp. 553-573, as well as a series of reports by the International Refugee Rights Initiative, Kampala
(including Going Home or Staying Home? Ending Displacement for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania, 2008; Resisting Repatriation:
Burundian Refugees Struggling to Stay in Tanzania, 2011; An urgent briefing on the situation of Burundian refugees in Mtabila camp
in Tanzania, 2012; ‘I can’t be a citizen if I am still a refugee’: Former Burundian Refugees Struggle to Assert their new Tanzanian
Citizenship, 2013; From refugee to returnee to asylum seeker: Burundian refugees struggle to find protection in the Great Lakes
region, 2013).
277
Email communication from UNHCR Tanzania, September 2018.
278
“Magufuli — No citizenship for Burundi refugees”, The Citizen (Dar es Salaam), 21 July 2017; Charlie Ensor, “As risks rise in
Burundi, refuge in Tanzania is no longer secure”, IRIN, 8 May 2018.
279
Constitution of Uganda, 1962, Articles 7 and 8.
280
James S. Read, “Some Legal Aspects of the Expulsion”, in Michael Twaddle (ed.) Expulsion of a Minority: Essays on Ugandan
Asians, Athlone Press, London, 1975.
281
Uganda Expropriated Properties Act, No. 9 of 1982, Laws of Uganda, 2000, Cap. 87.
UNHCR / September 2018
67
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