By: Dr. Samy Naser Khalefa Al-Khaldy

     Many are wondering about reason lead to the existence of numerous number of citizens without identity cards or any prove of their citizenship, those are categorized in a categoray named Al-Bedon in Kuwiat. We do not know who is responsible for the continuation and aggravation of this problem. To make it clear, we have to resort to the Kuwait's political history and scrutinize its past.

     The Kuwaiti people were composed of a mixture of different nationalities immigrated to Kuwait from the neighboring areas: the Arab island, Iraq, Iran, Syria and minorities from other areas.
      Though Al-Bedon are a group of this nation's citizens who belong to the same ethnics and nationalities from which came the majority of the Kuwaiti people, the Kuwaiti government refuses to admit them as citizens, and deprives them of their most simple human rights, as well as their national rights.

     The majority of Al-Bedon are nomadic Bedouins came from the north of the Arab Island, they halted in Kuwait because of its being near, after the appearance of the political borders the separate the states of the region. Adding to them a number of the Arabs and the Persians of Iran, who are the emigrated from the Eastern coast of the gulf . The Bedon problem started in 1959, when the nationality law in Kuwait was issued, it came clearly into sight after the independence of Kuwait in 1961, because after that date, the nationality law did not meet the need of those who applied for the Kuwaiti nationality, till the number of the applicants increased to be ranging from 220,000 to 350,000 befor the Iraqi occupation in 1990 (at that time, this number constituted half of the population in Kuwait). According to the current official surveys, the number of the Bedons decreased to be less than 120,000, due to the policy of forced emigration applied by the government. In the first three decades of the problem appearance, the government was dealing with this category as citizens, because it needed their efforts in serving the nation, it accepted their appointments in the different ministries, particularly the Ministry of Interior and Defense, they constituted a huge rate of the officials in these two ministries. Their sons were approved to be admitted in the governmental schools, but - in the course of time- the government started to deny their rights one after the other, till their stated turned to the current state of deprivation of their most simple rights to live with dignity in Kuwait. They do not have identity cards nor work licenses, they are deprived of their rights to health care, education, marriage and many other basic rights stipulated in the International Declaration of Human Rights.

     The problem of the non- citizens -called the Bedons- could not be perceived, unless their historical situation was revised, especially that there are some who are no longer relate the reasons of the problem with what could be a base of the solutron, in the frame of the current picture. Several decades ago, many of the non citizens failed to obtain the Kuwaiti nationality for many reasons, the most important of these reason could be summarized as follows:

• The short-term of the period appointed for the application for the Kuwaiti nationality, and the ineffectiveness of the campaign launched, after the year 1959, to raise the awareness of the importance of obtaining nationality, especially its weak out reach to those who are residents out of the city.
• The short term of the Committees appointed to grant the nationality at that time, as a result, those who hurried succeeded to obtain nationality, and those who slowed did not obtain it.
• Considering the residence in Kuwait during the period from 1920 through 1950 a condition "requirement" to obtain the nationality with its different classes, which prevented many citizens from obtaining it, in spite of the fact that there were no official records before 1950 to depend on them to insure that nationality is to be granted for those who deserve it.
• The impact of the ethnic, tribal, personal attitudes factors of those who work in the committees responsible for granting the nationality, which took a way the rights of many citizens who have been resided in the country long time ago.
• The wide spread illiteracy among the citizens at that time, which affected negatively on the people's understanding of the importance on obtaining the nationality, especially that the nation was in a transitional phase, transforming itself from the primitive society towards a society of civil institutions and a constitutional system that helps organizing the huge incomes poured in the public treasury from the Petrol and its investments.
• The government's slowness and its indifference to find an early solution to the problem, which led to the aggravation of it, and it turned to be the current serious dilemma. This governmental sluggishness can be the cardinal reason behind the actions of many people who gave up their foreign nationalities and claimed to be belonging to the non citizens category hoping that some day they would be granted the Kuwaiti nationality.

     The government, or who represents its point of view, claims that those Bedons are citizens of other Arab states, who came to Kuwait by the end of the 60s and the early 70s to work, then they hided their passports and identity cards because they wanted to enjoy the advantages of the Bedons.

     This claim could not be believable, adding that it can not be generalized to be the principal. Even if there are some cases of that kind mentioned in the government's explanation, they are few cases can not be considered general, for the following reasons: Firstly: the geographic origins of the Bedons are not different from the geographic origins of the Kuwaiti citizens. It is a very well known fact that the Kuwaiti society is composed of a mixture of diverse ethnics and nationalities which emigrated to Kuwait from the near and neighboring areas. Secondly: the Bedons number was estimated to be 350,000 people before 1990, therefore, it is not possible to believe the half of this number, even the quarter, are citizens from other Arab states who entered Kuwait and hided their passports and documents, without any attention from the security apparatuses to this unlawful actions.

     Thirdly: the question raised is that why did the government ignore that security shortage for that long time? Why did not the government handle that perilous phenomenon during either the sixth, the seventh, or the eighth decade of the last century, before the number increased?
Fourthly: how any government could accept that immense number of people who hide their identity cards and passports to work in the governmental sector for the last decades?
Fifthly: why did not the state put records to its borders, to monitor individuals who enter and exit its zones, in order to be able to identify the dates of coming of those who claim today their being from the Bedons?
     Sixthly: if the government's claim was supposed true, that there are some people who had already hidden their passports and identity cards, and that the government had been deceived and had accepted them, why punishing the second generation who were raised in Kuwait as their only home and shelter, in which they live stable?      Therefore, the government's claim can not be logical, especially that there are many strong marriage relations between the Bedons and the Kuwaiti people, which assures that the majority of the Bedons have been really harmed when they were denied what they deserve.

     One of the proofs on the government's state of acting haphazardly in regard to finding solutions for the Bedons' problem is that during the last five decades the government has changed, in periodical basis, the name of this category. In the 50s, there were no certain names of the nationalities, all were citizens in the Emara of Kuwait. In the 60s the name of "Kuwait Bedouins" or (the residence of the desert) was used to identify the nationality of the Bedons. In the 70s the Bedons name appeared for the first time, while in the 80s the government replaced that name with the expression of "Non-Kuwaiti" abbreviated as N.K.

     The 90s, were divided to two periods of time. The first period is pre- the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, when the government used the name "of unidentified nationality" hoping that those citizens would pursue to identify their nationalities. The second period is after the liberalization, the government used the name "anonymous", finally it used the name "illegally resident" as an implication of the state's rejection to the continuance of their residence.

Likewise, during the last five decades, the government declared several times the composition of nationality granting committees, these committees are of three types:

• First: Committees for nationality granting composed in the 60s, they granted some people the nationality.
• Second: Committees for registration to obtain the nationality, these committees were established more than once during the mid of the 60s till the early 80s, however, every time they start their work, they call people to register their names , then they close the registration without giving explanations.
• Third: the Committees of pressure and expulsion that were created after the liberalization of Kuwait in 1992, among which, the central committee to handle the situations of the illegally residents, established in 1993, and the executive committee of the affairs of the illegally residents, established in 1996.

     The latter committee lacks legitimacy, because its name has no relation to the Bedons' issue, that category which could not be named "the illegally residents", for the illegally resident is that individual who enters a country and does not declare his existence within it, while the majority of the Bedons are born in the Kuwaiti hospitals and officially registered in the records of these hospitals.

     Thus, the government could not be acquitted responsibility of the current situation of this unjustly treated category of people, especially in the shade of the many and big haphazard actions taken by the government, which results , by no means, affected tens of thousands of ill-treated families resident in Kuwait.

     It is the fate's tragedy to have people live among us who are helpless and at loss, because there are some restriction imposed on them to take a way their simplest civil rights safeguarded to them by the human constitutions as well as God's laws.

     It is also the fate's doing, that this category of citizens live among us while suffering from deprivation, in the full sense of the word. The fate did not help this category enough to obtain citizenship documents, so they were subjects of all forms of injustice and humiliation.

     They are denied of their rights to travel, they can not have visas, except in some rare cases, when necessary, so they might be granted a passport and a passage ticket only, according to article No 17 "of the constitution".

     They are deprived of the right to work, as they are not allowed to be appointed in the private sector, and of course in the governmental sector too.

     They are deprived of their right to education, their children are not allowed to be enrolled in the public schools. This inhuman unjust decision led to the spreading of the illiteracy among tens of thousands of their children.

     They are deprived of the property rights, neither estates, companies, cars nor any other properties that require identity documents could be registered as their properties.
     They are deprived of the right to document their legitimate marriages and divorces. Courts do not authorize their marriages contracts. If one of them married without documentation in the court, he/she should be trialed on the charge of adultery, and his/her divorce can not be documented.
     They are deprived of their right to medical treatment, the patient from them has to pay dinars in the medical center, or ten in the hospital, and the baby delivery costs 300 dinars.
     Their babies are deprived of their rights to have a birth certificates. And the grand calamity is that the dead people also are deprived of their rights to have death certificates.
     They are deprived of the right to obtain a drive license, those of them who have one can not renew it if its expiry date was due.

All the above mentioned deprivations are breaches of the international human rights conventions on which the Kuwaiti government ratified. We herewith wonder, is it possible to find all these inhuman practices in a nation like Kuwait, whose resources are the sources of living for many people in the world?

     For many times, we halve talked about the suffering of the Bedons category because of the policy of deprivation, expulsion and pressure applied by the government in regard to that category, which leads to the gravity of the problem of this unjustly trated category, and the raise of the negative social impacts, as well as the impacts on the safety of the society, in a way that could affect the Kuwaiti social infrastructure.
Poverty imposed on them has prevailed as a natural result of preventing them from work, though, many of them have potentials and qualifications. Preventing them from working in both the private and the public sectors made them objects of exploitation. For the business owners take advantage of their hard conditions to employ them, usually, with the quarter of the normal deserved salary, and of course they do not mind, for they do not have other choices.
      Likewise, the illiteracy prevailed for the difficulty of giving education to their children. After they were deprived of enrolling their children in the governmental schools, they had to enroll them in the privates schools, which fees are so high that the parent, who themselves are not allowed to work, can not afford. At first, most of the families had to give up their girls' education, and preferred to give the priority to the boys'.Then the matter escalated to make them give up the education of all their children, and just give them the opportunity of one or two years at school. This situation led to a notable retardation in education and a notable raise in the delinquency rate. The illiterate individual who is deprived of study and work, and in the same time still needs a source of living, will, surley resort to different means to gain the bread.

     As for the medical treatment high prices, led the families of the Bedons unjustly treated category, to often relinquish the idea of obtaining medical advise or medical treatment, which leads to the aggravation and the spread of the diseases due to the delay in the treatment, which, in turn, would lead to a health disaster. One of the natural outcomes of poverty, illiteracy and psychological pressures is spread of the drugs and the use of violence. If one believes himself able to work, but the laws unjustly prevent him for no reason, he would reach to a state of rebel against the law, and as a consequence resort to violence as his only means to take his denied rights, as a consequence too, society looses its security, and the crimes of rubbery, drugs, killing would increase, diseases would spread, and the immoral practices would prevail. All these negative effects not only harm the non citizens, but also harm the whole Kuwaiti society. This is the grand calamity, which consequences and ramifications are the responsibility of everyone.
after the liberalization of Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation in 1991, the pressures on the Bedons category were increased. The government founded in the so- called "the public army that serves the Iraqi regime" a golden chance to get red of this increasing category, so it expelled thousands of them without court or legal base.

     The Bedons category has contributed actively in serving the nation during the Iraqi occupation. Thousands of them constituted the Kuwaiti army on the borders to liberate Kuwait. Of them were the war prisoner, the resistant and the martyr. All that did not mediate for them to stay in Kuwait, their country. Their suffering is not adequate evidence to prove their nationality and their loyalty to their nation, many of them are still residing in Kuwait illegally.

     Though the Kuwaiti constitution decides clearly that those who served the nation do deserve it's the recognition of obtaining the nationality, the government is still far a way from recognizing them, not considering that there is no more than the human blood to be offered for the nation's sake.

     In 2000, the government found a new theory says that the Bedons are just those who carry the paper of the survey of the year 1965. With this theory the government cancelled more than the two thirds of those people from its programs. Then it submitted a draft law to the nation council to give nationality to 2000 people annually from those who have this paper of survey.
      The draft law was approved. Despite the injustice of this theory, the government was not obligated with what it suggested and decided, as it gave nationality to a number far less than that decided in the law, the majority of those who were given the nationality upon that new law are the ones who deserved it in essence.

     By the end of the period declared by the government to submit the papers of proves, the government showed its intention to prosecute those who did not submit their papers, with the different charges of forgery in official papers, giving false information, unofficially entering the country.

      The latter charge could not be brought against those who are born in Kuwait, and consider it their only home.
Had the public prosecution found that the evidences submitted by the government are too weak. The government tried to silence the issue and to disregard it, the matter would have been worsen.

     That is how the Kuwaiti government deals simply with four generations of the Bedouns, who were born and are living in Kuwait before the appearance of the nationality law in 1959, who become all of a sudden illegally residents. Is there any wise man who could be arbitrated?