Thailand's government has set August 28 as the final date by which the Thai Hill Tribe communities classified as "stateless people" must prove they have a legitimate claim to gain the rights of being a Thai citizen.

Local Thai authorities have shown little enthusiasm to aid Thailand's hill-tribe people in preparing the needed documents to meet this deadline, say the layers working to secure the rights of stateless people in Thailand.

More than 400,000 Thai Hill Tribe people, nearly half of Thailand's almost 1 million hill-tribe people stand to lose the right on Thai citizenship when this deadline arrives.

There are about 200,000 people of the Thai Hill Tribes who have submitted evidence that they have their roots in Thailand, but the local Thai authorities have not informed them about their actual status. A further 200,000 have absolutely no supporting evidence to prove a long time connection with the country of Thailand, although they were born in Thailand.

As of August 28 2003, one cannot rule out the worst-case scenario: The Thai government would have the legal power to expel those people, saying they are illegal migrants.

The government of Thailand could also consider more humane alternatives, such as extending the deadline for this identity-card process by one year or giving the affected Thai Hill Tribe people a temporary residence permit until a new policy is formed. But the Thai government has not given any hints what it intends doing, said Surapong Kongchantuk, a human-rights member of the Law Society of Thailand.

The August 2003 deadline is just one of a litany of woes that Thai hill-tribe people endure as a result of being excluded from the Thai race in the 62 million people Kingdom of Thailand.

Their movement inside Thailand is severely restricted and they can be arrested by the Thai police if caught in areas beyond their home districts in the north of Thailand

Likewise, the status of the hill tribe children puts limits on seeking an university education. Students need the necessary paperwork as Thai residents, but hill-tribe children lack those credentials.

Over the past decade, hill-tribe communities have been accused by Thai officials of being the primary cause of deforestation because of their agricultural practices. A charge that consequently took the blame away from individuals and groups involved in the lucrative logging trade in the north of Thailand.

The Hilltribes have been used as scapegoats for our problems, like many others during events in the past history of Thailand, said Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, an anthropologist at Chiang Mai University. The Thai Hill Tribes have been blamed for destroying our forests, blamed that they cannot speak Thai and accused of being a threat to national security unless they are contained.

Yet at the same time, Thailand has not skipped a moment in playing up the colorful and ethnic facets of Thailand's Hill Tribe people to lure many tourists to Thailand and the northern areas of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai.

The nearly 1 million tribe people who belong to the Akha, Lahu, Lisu, Yao, Hmong and Karen tribes, living on the slopes of the northern mountains in small villages, offer a sharp contrast to the scenes today's modern Thai society.

These semi-nomadic people, with their headdresses of silver coins and their animist traditions, migrated into Thailand from Burma, Yunnan in southern China and Tibet a long time ago. The subject of their Thai citizenship did not come up until the late 1980s, when there was a huge spike in the number immigrants pouring into Thailand from the neighboring countries.

Thailand's government's attitude towards the Hill Tribes began to change in the period of 1986-89. Thai officials believed that if they start granting citizenship to all the hill-tribe people in Thailand, it would attract more and more immigrants. That, however, has not been the case in Laos and Vietnam, where citizenship was granted to all their hill-tribe people, Khun Chayan said.

We are in a very difficult situation, said Avu Mae from a small Lisu village some 50 kilometers west of the town of Chiang Rai. We have tried to apply for our Thai identity cards but nothing has happened, I think we need help to get to stay in Thailand, she said.

It is very trying for them, and they don't know what to do, said Chanparapha Nonttawasri, a researcher at the Hill Area Development Foundation in Chiang Rai. The problems and worries of those people are genuine.