KUWAIT'S STATELESS BIDOON: BACKGROUND AND RECENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KUWAIT 000558

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KISL KU BIDOON
SUBJECT: KUWAIT'S STATELESS BIDOON: BACKGROUND AND RECENT
PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS

REF: A. 2006 KUWAIT 4514

B. 2006 KUWAIT 3078

C. KUWAIT 0053

Classified By: Political Counselor Pete O'Donohue for reasons 1.4 b and
d


1. (SBU) Summary. For the past twenty years, Kuwait's 100,000
stateless Bidoon residents have been denied access to the
free healthcare, education, and other welfare-state benefits
enjoyed by Kuwaiti citizens. Demonstrating a growing social
awareness of the plight of the Bidoon and a sensitivity to
the wishes of "tribal" voters, the GOK recently issued a
resolution to allow free healthcare for Bidoon who are
handicapped or younger than eighteen. In addition, Kuwaiti
courts recently established a precedent which makes it easier
for the Bidoon to obtain marriage and birth certificates.
Despite these assurances, the Bidoon issue is unlikely to be
fully resolved anytime soon through an expansion of
citizenship because many Kuwaiti citizens remain vehemently
opposed to increasing the rolls of those eligible for the
full benefits of the welfare state. The issue remains one of
Kuwait's most difficult and sensitive human rights issues.
End summary.

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The Origins of Kuwait's Stateless Arabs (Bidoon)
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2. (SBU) The Bidoon are people living in Kuwait who assert
rights to Kuwaiti citizenship and who deny that they have a
right to citizenship in any other country. The term "Bidoon"
means "without" in Arabic, because these people are without
citizenship. (Note: There is no connection with the Arabic
term "bedouin," although some Bidoon are members of bedouin
tribes that maintained a nomadic lifestyle in the pre-oil
era. End note.) There are approximately 100,000 Bidoon in
Kuwait (as compared to 1.1 million Kuwaiti citizens and two
million expatriate residents). The Bidoon are the highest
profile human rights issue for Kuwaiti politicians and NGOs,
though international human rights observers tend to focus
more attention on the plight of Kuwait's large population of
foreign workers (see Ref A).


3. (SBU) When Kuwait gained independence from Britain in
1961, the GOK carried out a campaign to register those who
would become citizens in the new state. In the rush to
identify legitimate citizens, however, the GOK missed
significant numbers because many living in Kuwait were rural
bedouins who either did not learn of the registration
requirements or did not understand their importance.
Furthermore, in the period before national boundaries were
delineated in the 1920s, and on a more limited scale up to
the 1960s, nomadic bedouins traveled freely in the area that
is now Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and did not have
permanent homes. As a result, the same family today will
sometimes have members who received Kuwaiti citizenship and
members who did not. Despite the historical evidence of this
phenomenon, many GOK defenders and Bidoon opponents assert
that only a very small number, if any, were actually missed
by naturalization efforts and that, instead, most Bidoon are
simply economic migrants from Syria, Jordan, and other Arab
states who have concealed their origins in an effort to
obtain the benefits of the generous Kuwaiti welfare state.

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Bidoon Problems Begin
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4. (SBU) Until the mid-1980s, the GOK treated Bidoon as
lawful residents of Kuwait whose claims to citizenship were
under consideration, a status that distinguished them not
only from other foreign residents but also from other groups
of stateless residents, such as Palestinians from Gaza. At
that time, the number of Bidoon was included in the total
number of Kuwaiti citizens in the Ministry of Planning's
Annual Statistical Abstract, and Bidoon were issued documents
identifying them as Bidoon. With the exception of voting
rights, they received the benefits of full citizens,
including subsidized housing, education, and health services.
Bidoon made up the vast majority of the rank and file of all
branches of the police and military, and were eligible for
temporary passports under article 17 of Kuwait's Passport Law
11/1962. Intermarriage among Bidoon and Kuwaiti citizens was
and remains common, and because of the vagaries of the
implementation of the Nationality Law it is not unusual for a
single family to have members with different citizenship
status: original citizenship, citizenship by naturalization,
and Bidoon.


5. (SBU) In 1985, the government began applying provisions of

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the Alien Residence Law 17/1959 to the Bidoon and issued a
series of regulations stripping the Bidoon of almost all
their previous rights and benefits. It is unclear why the
government changed its policies so radically, but the sharp
1984/1985 drop in oil prices probably made the GOK more
concerned about the number of new citizens eligible for
government benefits. More restrictions followed:

-- In 1986, the government severely restricted Bidoons'
eligibility for travel documents. It also fired government
employees not employed by the army or the police who could
not produce valid passports, whether issued by Kuwait or
another country, and instructed private employers to do the
same.

-- In 1987, the government began refusing to issue Bidoon new
or renewed driver's licenses or register their cars, and
began terminating free public education for Bidoon children
and instructing private schools to require valid residency
permits.

-- In 1988, the ban on free public education was extended to
universities, and Kuwaiti clubs and civic associations were
instructed to dismiss their Bidoon members.

-- Also beginning in 1988, statistical data on Bidoon in the
government's Annual Statistical Abstract was transferred from
the Kuwaiti category to alien population categories.


6. (SBU) Restrictions on the Bidoon escalated in the
aftermath of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. In September
1990, the Iraqi occupation authorities ordered, under the
penalty of death, all noncitizen residents of Kuwait to join
the Popular Army, a militia that was formed to support the
Iraqi army. Failure to provide evidence of registration with
the militia became grounds for immediate imprisonment.
Seizing on the fact that a few individual Bidoon joined the
Popular Army -- and blaming the Bidoon for the Kuwaiti army's
failure to stop the Iraqi invasion, since the Bidoon
constituted the overwhelming majority of the armed forces
rank and file -- many Kuwaitis came to view all Bidoon as
collaborators. Anti-Bidoon policies escalated:

-- Bidoon who fled to Iraq found themselves stranded there
when the GOK refused to allow the reentry of all but a few.

-- Bidoon government employees were dismissed en masse and
only a small portion were later rehired.

-- Beginning in 1993, Bidoon were also required to pay fees
to utilize healthcare centers, although those services
remained free for Kuwaiti citizens.

-- Bidoon not employed by the government found themselves
facing serious obstacles when seeking to register births,
marriages, divorces, and deaths.

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Current situation: Idle hands do the Peninsula Lion's work
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7. (C) The lack of identification documents makes it nearly
impossible for Bidoon today to find new employment. To
survive, most Bidoon rely on savings and charities. Some work
informally, driving water trucks or taxis. Others have turned
to street vending, but this activity is illegal and exposes
them to arrest and fines. With so few options to make a
living legally, some of the disenfranchised, undereducated,
and underemployed single young men who make up the majority
of the Bidoon community have turned to crime and some have
been susceptible to terrorist recruitment (see Ref B).

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Recent developments: Healthcare & education
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8. (SBU) Kuwaiti government policies also limit Bidoon
children's access to healthcare and education. Unlike
Kuwaiti citizens, since 1993 Bidoon have been required to pay
for access to government health clinics. However, on May 21,
the Ministry of Health passed a resolution allowing free
access to government health clinics for all Bidoon children
with a Kuwaiti mother (with free access to end once the child
turns eighteen). This resolution also allows free health
clinic access for life for all Bidoon deemed handicapped by
the Ministry of Health. And in 2005, the GOK began funding
private primary and secondary education for Bidoon children.

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Recent developments: Marriage and birth certificates
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KUWAIT 00000558 003 OF 004




9. (SBU) Bidoon face difficulty certifying marriages --
including in marriages between a Bidoon and a Kuwaiti --
because the Bidoon member of the couple lacks a civil ID and
must obtain a letter from the Ministry of Interior and
complete a lengthy security check. Obtaining birth
certificates is also difficult for Bidoon couples. If a
Bidoon has a child, the hospital will ask for the nationality
of the parents. Since they have no nationality, they need to
get a "to whom it may concern" letter from the Executive
Committee for Illegal Residents (ECIR) instructing the
Ministry of Health that it can issue a birth certificate that
does not indicate the nationality of the parents. According
to the NGO Human Rights Watch, the ECIR rarely issues such
letters.


10. (SBU) However, on March 25, Kuwait's Court of First
Instance passed an unprecedented decision to issue a marriage
certificate to a Bidoon woman married to a Kuwaiti citizen.
Based on this precedent, on April 5 and again on May 26, the
Kuwait Court of First Instance affirmed a Bidoon man's rights
to receive a marriage certificate and birth certificates for
his children. These rulings forced the Justice and Health
ministries to recognize these certificates.

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Recent developments: Resettlement
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11. (C) In 1993, the GOK demolished the district of Umm
al-Haiman (southwest of Kuwait City) and forced its largely
Bidoon inhabitants to relocate to the more remote Sulabiya
and Taima districts. Musaed Al-Shimmary, a member of the
Kuwaiti Bidoon Society who is himself a Bidoon, speculated to
PolOff that in the next few years the GOK will expropriate
the Sulaibiya and Taima districts to build new housing
developments and force its current 70,000 Bidoon residents to
relocate again to substandard housing in an even more remote
area.

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Bidoon Proponents and Opponents
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12. (C) Kuwait's Al Sabah ruling family has traditionally
shared the country's oil largess generously with the urban
business families. However, the impact of rural, tribal
Kuwaitis is now growing rapidly both in terms of population
and representation in the National Assembly as these groups
seek a proportional share of political leverage in Kuwait.
These rural Kuwaitis present a challenge to the urbanites and
-- through their presence in parliament -- to the present
composition of the GOK (see Ref C). Most Bidoon live in
rural areas and granting the 100,000 Bidoon Kuwaiti
citizenship and voting rights would accelerate this trend.
Rural Kuwaitis are much more inclined to support Bidoon
citizenship than are urban Kuwaitis.


13. (C) Proponents of granting citizenship to the Bidoon
include:
-- Tribal and Islamist MPs. Tribes dominate Kuwait's rural,
conservative constituencies and would benefit from having
100,000 more supporters, especially if districts were redrawn.

-- Shi'a MPs. Shi'a MPs believe that as many as 50% of the
Bidoon are Shi'a (Shi'a make up about 30% of Kuwait's
citizenship).

-- Kuwaitis with Bidoon family members or friends.

-- Social activists and Bidoon-rights NGOs



14. (C) Opponents include:

-- Urban business families and urban leftists. These two
groups believe they stand to lose the most by an increase in
rural/tribal influence. Some urban business families feel
they have been overwhelmed by the granting of citizenship to
bedouins who aren't "really" Kuwaiti. Similarly, some urban
leftists believe the GOK granted citizenship to bedouins
during a 1960s and 1970s naturalization push in order to
dilute the opposition in the National Assembly. These urban
Kuwaitis see the push to grant citizenship to thousands of
Bidoon bedouins as a continuation of these earlier policies
and a further threat to their influence.


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Comment
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15. (C) The new healthcare access and court precedents
regarding marriage and birth certificates represent small but
significant victories for the Bidoon. However, the Bidoon
issue remains highly controversial and contentious.
Moreover, further progress in 2009 may be stymied by Kuwait's
current economic crisis and long-standing political malaise,
both of which render Kuwaitis leery about expanding too
dramatically the pool of persons eligible for economic
benefits or political rights. In addition, the composition
of the parliament elected May 16 -- which somewhat weakened
the influence of tribalists and Islamists -- suggests this
parliament may have a correspondingly weakened interest in
advancing the status of the Bidoon. End comment.

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