Kuwait on alert as angry Bedoun approach border

Kuwait on alert as angry Bedoun approach border
REUTERS

SAFWAN, IRAQ, OCT 5: Over 2,000 STATELESS Arabs approached Iraq's border with Kuwait on Thursday in a bid to return to the northern Gulf emirate Baghdad's troops invaded a decade ago.

"Kuwait is our home...no matter how long it will take...Kuwait will return to us," they chanted.

"Today we are among our brothers in Iraq and tomorrow we will be among our relatives in Kuwait," said a banner carried by demonstrators who approached the U N demarcated border.

Loudspeakers aired Kuwaiti songs while Kuwaiti helicopters hovered overhead.

Kuwait on Tuesday put police on alert along its border with former occupier to confront what it said was the massing of Iraqi intelligence agents.

Around 3,000 stateless Arabs known as Bedoun, including some who claim to be Kuwaitis, have pitched tents along the border in the Iraqi section of a demilitarized zone (DMZ), patrolled by the United Nations.

Kuwait fears they may try to sweep across the frontier, acting on orders from Baghdad, officials said.

Defence sources said the Bedoun are accompanied by Iraqi police, who are allowed into the DMZ in limited numbers and with light arms.

On Wednesday, the Bedoun threatened to use force to back their demands to return to Kuwait.

Tensions between Iraq and Kuwait have mounted since Baghdad in August celebrated the 10th anniversary of its move into its small oil-rich southern neighbour.

Iraq has accused Kuwait of stealing its oil from a border area, a charge Kuwait denies. The United States, which led the 1991 war that drove Iraq's forces from the Emirate, has warned Baghdad it would use force if it threatened Gulf Arab states.

Bedoun, the Arabic word for "without", is used in Kuwait to describe stateless people who live in Kuwait and say they are Kuwaitis. How to deal with them is one of the emirate's most complicated and sensitive internal issues.

Kuwait says thousands of Iraqis who once lived in Kuwait claiming to be Kuwaitis fled with Iraqi troops at the end of the Gulf War in 1991 after having supported Iraq's invasion.

The number of Bedoun in Kuwait has dropped to just over 100,000 from about 280,000 before the Iraqi invasion. Some Bedoun are thought to have stayed in Iraq, while others headed to other countries.

"We are born and have lived in Kuwait...our families, brothers and sisters are still there," Sabah Sa'doun said. "We will stay for a week and if nothing happens we will stay longer."

Kuwait has passed laws in recent months to tackle and gradually resolve the Bedoun issue. Officials in Kuwait said eligible Bedoun would receive Kuwaiti nationality. DNA test would be used to verify their lineage.

A U S State Department official said: "This activity seems to be the latest in a series of propaganda ploys hostile to Kuwait be the government of Iraq."