Statelessness in the Caribbean. Kristy A. Belton
the operation of its law.50 Movement, both within a state and across borders, can therefore be highly problematic, resulting in one of the ironies of statelessness—those who lack a formal membership bond to any state through citizenship are among those with the most severely restricted mobility on earth.
This section has illustrated that stateless people, in general, are bound in numerous ways. Although the stateless are not forced to flee their homes in the same way that other kinds of forced migrants are, they suffer many of the same effects of forced displacement. They are, in Lubkemann’s words (2008), immobilized as their ability to carry out “key life projects” has been involuntarily—and severely—disrupted. Thus, while the issue of statelessness may not be at the forefront of humanitarian agendas or among the stories of the forcibly displaced that have come to our attention in recent years, it is clear that the stateless do suffer.
Macrolevel Repercussions
When one considers the domestic and international constraints faced by those without citizenship, it becomes apparent why international jurists, such as Hersch Lauterpacht, would consider citizenship to be an “instrument for securing the rights of the individual in the national and international spheres” (quoted in van Panhuys 1959, 236), and why citizenship is often considered “not one right but a bundle of rights” (Odinkalu 2008, 14). The violation of the human right to a nationality does not simply have individual-level repercussions, however. Its effects can also be felt community-wide.
For example, statelessness can affect regime stability in various ways. Earlier it was noted that democratization processes may sometimes have negative effects for certain minority populations when they are denationalized or denied citizenship for political gain. The flip side to this phenomenon is the inability of a state to consolidate a democracy. As Linz and Stepan assert, “The greater the percentage of people in a given state who were born there or who had not arrived perceiving themselves as foreign citizens, who are denied citizenship in the state and whose life changes are hurt by such denial, the more unlikely it is that this state will consolidate a democracy” (1996, 33). Virginia Leary likewise adds that “the exclusion of a group of people who reside within a given regime and who have little hope of regularizing their status and becoming citizens can be destabilizing domestically and challenge any regime’s ability to transition fully to a democratic status” (1999, 257).
Some interviewees for this study fear that the legal, political, and social exclusion of Bahamian- and Dominican-born persons of Haitian descent will escalate into a large-scale social problem in the countries of their birth. “We will have pockets of the population that are going to then enter into crisis,” says Francisco Henry Leonardo of the Centro Bonó. “They’re going to enter into a crisis and search for their own identity. Because, look, they feel Dominican, but they are rejected. So, ‘What is our identity?’ They are going to start a process of differentiation.” Altair Rodríguez, a Dominican social scientist, agrees: “It’s a time bomb. We’re creating a bomb. There’s thousands of kids being raised in bateyes without access to education, without access to basic rights.… So we’re creating a social bomb that’s going to explode.”51
These fears are echoed in the Bahamian case. Bahamian lawyer Dexter Reno Johnson proclaims that the situation “is a keg of dynamite, a source of potential social unrest of mammoth proportions”; “a critical problem that makes most other problems pale into insignificance since unless properly handled, this one could threaten the peaceful existence of the Bahamas, as we know it at any time, and for the foreseeable future” (Johnson 2008, 71, 72).52 An anonymous interviewee adds that the Bahamian government’s exclusionary citizenship laws are “creating more liabilities than assets”53 for the country and Mark Desmangles, born of Haitian descent in The Bahamas, observes how statelessness “affects economics. Because this is a group of people who cannot participate economically in the banking system, in the work force to give toward the economic well-being and the betterment of the community.”
Another anonymous Bahamian interviewee, discussing the problems associated with denying citizenship to children born of noncitizens until age eighteen, declares that “What you do in fact do is frustrate and alienate that person for 18 years. How does that serve the public good?”54 The Bahamas Constitutional Commission, which made recommendations to alter the Bahamian Constitution in diverse areas, including nationality, also emphatically asserts that it:
cannot overstate the enormous psychological, socio-economic and other ill-effects that result from leaving large groups of persons in limbo in relation to their aspirations for Bahamian citizenship. Not only are the affected individuals badly damaged and marginalized, the entire society is put at risk and its future compromised by having within its borders a substantial body of persons who, although having no knowledge or experience of any other society, are made to feel that they are intruders without any claim, moral or legal, for inclusion. Such feelings of alienation and rejection are bound to translate into anti-social behavior among many members of what is, in effect, a very large underclass in our society. (Government of The Bahamas 2013b, 96–97; italics added)
Additionally, the combination of poor living conditions, limited employment prospects, and social stigma sometimes leads to communal tension in the states where the stateless reside. As UNHCR points out, the “Denial of basic human rights [to stateless persons] impacts not only the individuals concerned but also society as a whole, in particular because excluding an entire sector of the population may create social tension and significantly impair efforts to promote economic and social development” (2010b, 4). During the past few years, for example, significant violence has erupted between Buddhists and stateless Rohingya in Myanmar, with hundreds of people being killed and thousands of homes destroyed.55 Banyamulenge, who have struggled for citizenship recognition in the Democratic Republic of Congo, continue to face “discriminatory treatment and ethnic tensions” (UN HRC 2008b, 17), and “excessive force” has been used by the Kuwaiti authorities against Bidoon who have been peacefully protesting for citizenship recognition in that state (Al Jazeera 2012; Reynolds and Cordell 2012, 2).
The problems associated with statelessness are not limited to one state’s borders either. States that refuse to grant citizenship to stateless persons may be providing grounds for these people to “seek full national legal identity elsewhere” (Batchelor 2006, 10). This is problematic because international law does not allow one state to “release itself from the international duty, owed to other states, of receiving back a person denationalized who has acquired no other nationality” (McDougal et al. 1974, 951). That is, states are not permitted to allow stateless people to become “charge[s] on other States” (951). While most stateless groups do not cross borders (they are “noncitizen insiders”), the Rohingya are a prime example of a stateless group that has crossed borders—leaving Myanmar for Bangladesh, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Gulf States—in the hopes of finding a home elsewhere.
The Bidoon of the Gulf region, European Roma, and Banyamulenge are also cases of stateless people who have crossed state borders, whether forcibly or voluntarily. Conflict between states may arise when they do not agree on the origin of stateless people or on which state should be granting citizenship to them, especially when resources are scarce. As Andrew Shacknove remarks, “The potential for international conflict is increased when ambiguity exists about the allocation of, and responsibility for, either territory or populations of forced migrants” (1993, 527).
The issue of deciding who belongs where, and how a given minority population should be treated, can be a particularly politically sensitive regional issue when a state has to deal with stateless persons on its territory who also happen to belong to a recognized minority population in a neighboring state. For instance, the stateless Lhotshampas are allegedly straining Nepal’s resources. Nepal has asked Bhutan, the ethnic “origin” state of the Lhotshampas, to sort out the latter’s nationality status (Khan 2001, 24–25). India, being the regional power, has the clout to negotiate an agreement between Nepal and Bhutan concerning this stateless group, but will not do so because of the huge number of ethnic Nepalis within its own borders. “India is no longer particularly anxious to be associated with Nepali minority rights movements in third countries for fear of its own vulnerability on the matter” (21).