Anchor amnesty in law to rehabilitate defectors
Al-Shabaab returnees who were rescued by Kenya Defence Forces soldiers from Somalia.
As thousands of Kenyan youth defect from Al-Shabaab, focus shifts to their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. In 2015, the government offered unconditional amnesty to Kenyan youth in the Somalia-based jihadist group.
This was premised on the fact that some youth were tricked into joining the terrorists without having prior knowledge of its criminal activities.
The highly successful joint venture of the government, civil society and religious organisations has been widely emulated. More than 5,000 youth have gone through the programme, with most of them assisted to initiate income-generating projects and others volunteering to be anti-terrorism champions to reach out to their entrapped former colleagues.
More than 1,000 defectors have received amnesty in the past two months. Mombasa County, which has been hard hit by terrorist attacks in the past, accounts for over half of this number.
This is in sync with the National Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism, which explores avenues to combat violent extremism and terrorism. The strategy is coordinated by the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC). It has been cascaded to counties via county action plans (CAPs), which support national efforts at grassroot level.
Specific and localised approaches
CAPs provide specific and localised approaches to countering violent extremism and terrorism. Information from state sources indicate the plans were developed through consultations among various stakeholders with the local communities taking lead, hence owning their implementation.
Kwale and Mombasa were among the first to develop CAPs, which have been instrumental in reducing violent extremism and terrorism threats. This is manifested in the increasing number of Al-Shabaab returnees and no terrorist attack reported in the two coastal counties for a long time.
Activities in the plans include building trust between police and the public to enhance information sharing, development curriculum for madrasa, enhancing counter-violent extremism and terrorism awareness, providing economic opportunities to youth to prevent them from being lured to terrorism and initiating disengagement programmes to rehabilitate and reintegrate returnees to society.
Other counties with CAPs are Lamu, Isiolo, Nakuru, Nairobi, Wajir and Bungoma. NCTC needs to guide the few remaining ones to develop the plans and ensure those with the plans implement them.
To safeguard the gains of the programme and institutionalise it, Parliament ought to anchor it in law. That will give it the much-needed legal status and legitimacy to enhance its buy-in among returnees, society and implementers. Soft power strategies like amnesty supplement military hard power in the fight against violent extremism and terrorism.
More importantly, youth in Al-Shabaab should be encouraged to take advantage of the amnesty programme to return home for rehabilitation support.
