IRIN
No easy way forward for Al-Shabab
defectors
 |
Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
A former Al-Shabab fighter watches the construction of a rehabilitation centre in Baidoa
|
BAIDOA, 12 June 2014 (IRIN) – Anwar
Ahmed*, 50, an Al-Shabab defector, was drawn to Somalia’s Salafist armed group
both by the promise of a wage and a belief in the Islamic ways of “rights and
justice for all”.
Stationed in the Bakool provincial
capital of Hudur, Ahmed worked mainly as a sentry, while also corralling
residents to answer the call to prayer, collecting road taxes – up to US$300
for freight trucks and between $10 and $20 for cars – and assisting in the
collection of zakat, the 2.5 percent tax on annual earnings paid in either cash
or kind.
Ahmed’s own pay was modest: $20 or
$30 every few months during his three year stint with the armed group, never
enough to provide for his four children and wife. “ On a personal level, there
was nothing to gain,” Ahmed recalls. “I thought Al-Shabab were real about
Islam’s call for justice for all. But it was based on a big lie. The commanders
got it all.”
Disillusioned, he made his way to
Baidoa, crossing the hills, surviving on the generosity of herders who gave him
water and milk. After being screened by Somali intelligence officials, he
entered an ex-combatants programme.
The former killer
Gabeyre Mohamed*, 28, was a member
of the elite Amniyat, Al-Shabab’s “secret service”, whose operatives were
reportedly implicated in Nairobi’s Westgate mall attack in 2013.
Upgraded from being an Al-Shabab
foot soldier to joining a five person Amniyat cell, Mohamed acknowledges it was
an honour to be chosen, but despised his role as a killer. “I was given a
pistol, a name and a picture of them and sent to kill them. I always lied and
came back and said this man is nowhere to be seen.” His conscience told him to
leave. “I made up my mind, as I believed I was being sent to kill innocent
people.”
“I believed I was being sent to kill
innocent people”
At the Baidoa ex-combatant centre he
gets no money, but three meals a day, and the hope of a driver’s licence and an
education. “I will not return to Al-Shabab,” Mohamed says. “Even the promise of
heaven will never make me go back.”
Ahmed and Mohamed are among those
who have left Al-Shabab and sought to make a new life. But working out what to
do with Al-Shabab defectors is not easy either for the Somali authorities or
for the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM).
Waldemar Vrey is director of
UNSOM’s Rule of Law and Security
Institutions Group (ROLSIG), with part of its brief being to deal with former
Al-Shabab ex-combatants.
Vrey describes the work as
“delicate”. Applying Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) to an
organization officially declared a terrorist group has its own difficulties,
not least when it comes to gaining donor support.
High risk and low risk
Under current procedures, defectors
from Al-Shabab are vetted by the National Intelligence and Security Agency
(NISA) and the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). They are classed as either “high
risk” or “low risk”.
Vrey says around 1,000 “low risk”
ex-fighters have received some rehabilitation and skills training. Those who
want to go home can do so “if it is agreeable to the communities”.
Vrey points out that there is no
shortage of replacements for those wanting to quit Al-Shabab. “As 1,000 defect,
another 1,000 are recruited. It is not as though recruitment will stand still.”
Current estimates of the number of active Al-Shabab fighters vary from 5,000 to
9,000.
It is with the more experienced
fighters that the dilemmas become more serious. “The high-end guys, the ones
that are hardened, the ones NISA feels cannot go through the rehab process,
they have to go through a judicial process,” Vrey points out. “The majority of
them are sitting in jail and it is with them we have stumbling blocks.”
The trials have brought new dangers.
There was a series of assassinations of civilian judges presiding over court
cases for high risk Al-Shabab fighters, who had either defected or been
captured. The solution of the authorities was to bring in military tribunals.
But the tribunals’ readiness to apply the death penalty drew disapproval from
the international community and human rights organizations.
A road-map for ex-combatants
In an attempt to find lasting
solutions for fighters who want a new start, in April 2013, the Transitional
Federal Government published a road map for a National Programme for the
Treatment and handling of Disengaging Combatants and Youth at Risk in Somalia.
The initiative came in the wake of
significant military victories by AMISOM and Somali national forces against
Al-Shabab in Mogadishu in August 2011, Belet Weyne in Hiraan province in
February 2012 and then with the securing of Baidoa and the southern port of
Kismayo.
Four Transitional Facilities (TF)
for low risk ex-Al-Shabab fighters are in various phases of development, in
Mogadishu, Baidoa, Belet Weyne and Kismayo.
Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
Members of the National Intelligence
Security Agency in Baidoa
A NISA official in Kismayo, who
declined to be identified, told IRIN that former combatants are examined on the
basis of their previous history and ideological convictions, which determine
the kind of threat they may still pose. The process can be long and laborious.
“The longest screening I was involved in took about one month. Some might tell
the truth immediately. Others might not say anything, while in other cases
stories will change.”
UNSOM’s legal considerations
associated with rehabilitation of ex-Al-Shabab fighters, has provided for
interventions from outside the mission, with a three man unit, known as the
Serendi team – named after Mogadishu’s TF – funded by the Norwegian, Danish and
Spanish governments.
“They see us as disassembling their
force and we are a target”
Serendi team members include a
Special Forces bodyguard and a European-based Somali engineer who fled Somalia
during the civil conflict of the 1990s, back on a two-year sabbatical.
Team members did not want to be
identified, highlighting the threat from Al-Shabab. “They see us as
disassembling their force and we are a target”, one pointed out. The same
dangers apply to everyone involved in DDR. A Serendi team member told IRIN that
around 70 percent of Al-Shabab disengaged fighters who had been screened had
been classed as low risk.
The Serendi team’s methods blend
Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) techniques, including individual mentoring
and the sharing of experiences between the ex-Al-Shabab, with skills training
programmes for livelihoods. DDR experts say building-up self-esteem for
ex-fighters is vital.
The militias outside Al-Shabab
Vrey notes that the focus on the war
against Al-Shabab has overlooked the activities of other militias. Having
profited from two decades of Somalia’s breaking down into a failed state, some
groups continue to prosper.
They include clan-based militias,
through to the private armies of warlords and business concerns raising their
own armed forces to protect their financial interests.
A February 2014 briefing by the
Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group highlighted dangers of small-arms
proliferation following the partial lifting of the country’s arms embargo and
the scale of violence used by different militias.
The briefing noted “indiscriminate
attacks” by Abgaal and Habar Gedir clan-based armed forces on civilian areas in
December 2013, “resulting in the killing and wounding of children, women, and
unarmed young men; rape; looting and burning of villages, and extrajudicial
executions.”
Vrey said the advantage of other
armed groups was they “are not Al-Shabab,” which spares DDR programming the
pitfalls of engaging with a terror listed organisation. Furthermore, most
militias were already within their communities, making it easier for local
authorities to end conflicts through economic revival programmes and other
grassroots initiatives.
Ensuring proper facilities for
ex-combatants takes time. For example, the location of a TF in Kismayo was
recently identified, but security and infrastructural problems slowed things
down. To carry out a 30-minute recce of the building, the Serendi team required
an escort by Kenyan AMISOM soldiers, NISA, the Somali National Army and close
protection security officers. Meanwhile, Al-Shabab defectors in the port city
are living in safe houses.
In Baidoa, where the French funded
TF is about to open, the delays have given clans a bigger role in the
rehabilitation of about 120 ex-Al Shabab combatants.
A Baidoa elder, Abdul Kadir Hassan,
told IRIN that families were taking responsibility for ex-combatants and
working out if they could be trusted. “It depends on the individual, but by
leaving, most ex-fighters have made up their minds already. So they are seen as
safe.” Hassan stressed that DDR was crucial for peace in Somalia.
Elder Adan Abdi, told IRIN about 90
percent of Al-Shabab forces were Somali and “joined because they had no means”.
But he stressed that “Al-Shabab is a foreign ideology” and the foreigners would
have to be hunted down, not rehabilitated.
Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
Ammunition dumped on a beach in the
Somali capital Mogadishu
Clan elders have an important role
to play in managing clan feuds caused by the conflict. Hassan said a family
could request “blood money” as a form of reconciliation, but wide scale poverty
made this an unrealistic solution.
“We argue that they were
brainwashed, so they were not in their right minds and in this way we can often
resolve things through clan justice”
He says it is better to defend the
ex-fighters on the basis that they were not free at the time of their actions.
“We argue that they were brainwashed, so they were not in their right minds and
in this way we can often resolve things through clan justice”.
However, clan elders say the
development of the centres is hugely important. For Abdi, there have to be
enough centres and they must be able to cater properly for the former fighters.
“If someone is hungry and you say come and eat, but there is no food, will they
come? The answer is no.
“If you offer them a life they will
come. If the centres provide, the ex-combatants will contact their friends in
Al-Shabab and tell them it’s not as bad as we thought and they will come as
well. And then this thing will end very quickly”. IRIN
.jpg)