RTG ADVANCES ON HILL TRIBES CITIZENSHIP

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGKOK 001286 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV TH SUBJECT: RTG ADVANCES ON HILL TRIBES CITIZENSHIP ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. On January 2, 2006, the RTG granted Thai citizenship or permanent residency to nearly 14,000 individuals. Members of hill tribes accounted for 6,678 of this number. This action is part of the MOI,s effort to clear the backlog of thousands of applications, and accelerate the application process. While this is a positive development, the RTG still has a ways to go toward ensuring that those who are entitled to Thai nationality are able to fully exercise their rights as citizens. Advocacy groups agree that the MOI is making a concerted effort, but note that implementation at the district and local level continues to be problematic. Post,s DRL-funded grant to the Hill Tribe Citizenship Project continues to play a significant role in increasing public awareness and assisting hill tribes and RTG officials to remedy this long-standing problem. END SUMMARY. THE NUMBERS ¶2. (U) On 02 January 2006, the MOI approved the citizenship applications of 13,827 persons. According to the MOI, this is the largest number of approvals ever granted at one time. The majority of approved applicants were from hill tribes. The MOI broke down the approvals as follows: Highlanders ) 6,363; Burmese ) 3,175; Vietnamese ) 2,279; Chinese (ex-Nationalists and Haw) ) 978; Nepalese ) 704; Tribal People ) 287; Tai Lue ) 28; and Malaysian (ex-Communists) ) 13. (NOTE: MOI confirms that the categories Highlander, Tribal People, and Tai Lue all represent hill tribe peoples. End Note.) ¶3. (U) Not all of these applicants received automatic citizenship. The 4,272 primary applicants who have spent most of their lives in Thailand received permanent resident status as they are considered migrants. They will be able to apply for naturalization after a five-year residency period. The Thai-born children and grandchildren of these primary applicants (9,555 in total) were granted citizenship immediately. MOI PICKING UP THE PACE ¶4. (SBU) MOI,s Minority Affairs Section informed Post that the large number of approvals was a result of MOI's effort to clear the backlog of pending citizenship applications. MOI officials and advocacy groups believe the number of pending applications to be approximately 100,000. While there is general agreement that the central government is making an honest effort to speed up the process, implementation at the provincial and local levels remains inconsistent and corruption remains a significant roadblock in certain districts. The complicated process involves moving an application back and forth through multiple layers of government and police bureaucracy. The applicant is often required to pay bribes to officials at each step in the process in order to move their petition forward. Nevertheless, thanks to the extra push from government authorities the accelerated pace of approvals is expected to continue. ¶5. (U) Post,s DRL-funded Hill Tribe Citizenship Project is playing an important role in the process. The project develops educational materials for hill tribe villagers informing them of their legal rights and works directly with villagers and local officials to simplify the process, track specific cases, and empower villagers to take full advantage of their rights. Project organizers have created a database of villagers and their biographic information to help move cases through the system more quickly. While much work remains to be done, the education campaign and continued vigilance of the project organizers has led to decreased corruption in some localities. ¶6. (SBU) COMMENT: Though the backlog of applications is still large, there is an attempt by the RTG to speed the process and find a solution to this lingering problem. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be a true effort at streamlining the often corrupt process of moving applications forward. Instead, it is simply a top-down campaign from the MOI to make the system work faster. Nevertheless, though the informal costs to applicants may remain high, they (and the advocacy groups that support them) are beginning to see signs for hope. At the same time, those awaiting adjudication of their applications, remain in a type of stateless limbo. They are denied the right to vote, buy land, obtain legal employment, or travel freely and, as such; they are vulnerable to human traffickers with unscrupulous offers of employment. ¶7. (SBU) Just as we begin to see progress, the highly successful DRL-funded grant to the Hill Tribe Citizenship Project is running out of funds. The program is viewed favorably not only by hill tribe communities and advocacy groups, but also by local officials who have benefited from the program's educational activities/materials. The Hill Tribe Citizenship Program is currently seeking additional funds to continue its activities and expand its capacity to monitor applications as they move through the system. END COMMENT BOYCE