INTRODUCTION

Since 1990, there has been a general international consensus that Africa’s ability to manipulate bipolar tensions in the post-Cold War era has been profoundly undermined. According to Ottaway:

"By any standard, African countries remain marginal to all global trends. The basic facts are discouraging ... The continent is economically, socially, and culturally marginalized."¹

As a result, the commonly accepted conclusion is that Africa has been marginalised, abandoned to survive on its own as best as possible. Arguably, the end of bipolarity has created new and unforeseen opportunities for Africa and African organisations to resolve some of the continent’s problems. One area where a paradoxical, but not surprising positive development has occurred, is in the security field. Here, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and subregional initiatives such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have initiated concrete strategies to prevent, respond to and resolve some of Africa’s security-related problems.

Endeavours by ECOWAS to initiate a new security architecture in West Africa through its evolving conflict management system have partly occurred through epistemic partnerships that have been forged across the continent. To appreciate the ‘renewed’ concern for such systems fully and to situate the subsequent diverse but hesitant endeavours in their proper perspective, it is critical that the logical developments that have occurred within these organisations are properly highlighted. The contention here is that institutional history is important. What were the perceptions and response of ECOWAS towards shifting political and military situations in Africa between 1990 and 1996? What were the major features of these initiatives to introduce diverse conflict resolution management systems? To what extent did these initiatives take account of, firstly the new conflict dynamics that were experienced in Africa and, secondly, of the established conflict management system’s ability to resolve them?

All this is premised on three hypotheses:

To what extent has the contemporaneous establishment of the OAU’s conflict management system resulted from its support to ECOWAS between 1990 and 1997 to resolve Liberia’s conflict?



How have continent-wide epistemic partnerships impacted on the establishment of these conflict management systems?



How legitimate is the argument that the nature and impact of African conflicts ‘compelled’ African organisations to initiate conflict resolution strategies to maintain their credibility and raison d’être?

It can be argued that the fascinating synergy created between the OAU and ECOWAS contributed to heighten the need for the establishment of diverse conflict management systems by both organisations.

CHANGING AFRICAN PERCEPTIONS OF CONFLICTS: DAWN OF A NEW REALISM?

The gradual changes² in the OAU’s perceptions towards proactive interventions and responses to conflicts by African organisations were related to article 3 of the OAU Charter, which echoed the dominance conceded to the territorial integrity of states. In pursuit of the purposes stated in article 2, member states affirmed their adherence to the following principles:

the sovereign equality of all member states;



non-interference in the internal affairs of states;



respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence; and



the peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation, mediation, conciliation or arbitration.

At its inception, the OAU chose a statist position to govern international relations among its member states. As a result, the post-independence African norm which emerged was based on the legitimisation of statehood that was attached to territorial boundaries. The major norm that promoted the consolidation of African states was that of territorial integrity. This stood in sharp contrast to the rhetorical statements by African leaders of a pan-African ideal of continental unity, which resulted in a basic contradiction between this ideal and the power relations among newly independent African states. The closely guarded sovereignty of African states undermined the ability of the OAU and other African bodies to establish supranational organisations with enough power and legitimacy to deal with African conflicts. Instead, the lack of a structured mechanism exposed African conflicts and their prevention, management and resolution to ‘concerned’ external parties and groups.

For more than three and a half decades, article 2 of the OAU Charter had been applied as justification to permit the perpetration of all forms of atrocities against the peoples of Africa in the name of the sanctity of state sovereignty. The watershed year that demonstrated that article 3 could be breached was reached in 1979. Idi Amin of Uganda invaded Tanzania under the guise of reclaiming lost territory and in hot pursuit of his political opponents allegedly supported by the Julius Nyerere government. In response, Tanzanian troops repulsed this aggression and occupied Ugandan territory in alliance with opposition groups that eventually dethroned Amin.³ Similarly, ECOWAS’s decision to intervene in Liberia gravely undermined the sacrosanct tenets guiding international relations among Africa’s post-independence political leaders.

To appreciate the fundamental post-1990 turnabout in the OAU’s approach to conflicts, two issues deserve examination:

the changing dynamics of continental conflicts; and

the issue of member states’ contravention of its territorial and sovereignty norms.

Equally important to this change was the convergence of political ideologies between the OAU’s leaders, Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim and then current chairperson, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda in 1990. This epistemically informed partnership improved the prospects of soliciting international support for ECOWAS’s intervention in Liberia.

The background of these two significant OAU officials (in conjunction with ECOWAS’s leaders and the executive secretariat) helped to sustain continental and global interest in ECOWAS’s action. Salim is among a growing number of second generation post-independence African officials who increasingly ascribe to the dictum that there should be African solutions to African problems.⁴ In the view of these officials, the international community can and would do best to contribute to policies initiated and implemented by Africans in terms of logistics and material support when necessary.⁵

Museveni berated the OAU for unnecessarily upholding the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states even in the face of gross incompetence and human rights abuses. He had longed for an opportunity to influence the organisation’s perception and application of article 3. With this interrelationship, it is not surprising that the OAU responded to ECOWAS’s intervention in the way it did. Teaming up with Secretary General Salim, Museveni extended support to ECOWAS and succeeded in taking the OAU on a high-risk political detour similar to Abbas Bundu’s ECOWAS reforms three years earlier. Whatever reservations the OAU had about ECOWAS’s intervention could be due to the changed perception of these two figures at the time. Thus, ECOWAS did not only escape criticism, but obtained critical moral, political, financial and institutional support from the OAU for its intervention.

The OAU’s involvement in ECOWAS’s endeavours to resolve Liberia’s crisis began in July 1990, three months after ECOWAS had initiated the Standing Mediation Commission process. Its initial action involved dispatching two delegations to West Africa. One visited Liberia to consult with faction leaders and other important opinion makers on how best to resolve the crisis. The second delegation visited the subregion, especially member states of the Standing Mediation Commission.⁶

The reports of the delegations formed the basis for the argument to establish formal mechanisms to tackle internal conflicts in Africa. According to Salim, the era of indifference to the continent’s conflicts had elapsed.⁷ Subsequently, in August 1990, Salim reiterated his concern about the atrocities in Liberia and the need for Africa and Africans to act concertedly to resolve the crisis:

"We have reached a point where we can no longer say [that] what is happening in Liberia does not concern us."

Salim appealed for military co-operation to resolve the Liberian crisis. Decisively, he pledged OAU support for the ECOWAS Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG) initiative.⁸ This changing perception was confirmed by OAU leaders during their annual summit meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe. Detailing the dangers of the Liberian crisis to regional stability, peace and security, Salim asserted:

"Liberia is clearly in a state of anarchy and it is our hope that all the parties should co-operate with the efforts being made by ECOWAS so that they can have the opportunity of normalcy."⁹

Despite this support, Salim concurrently had to resolve how OAU support to ECOWAS could be reconciled with article 3. Analysing a possible exit option, Salim argued:

"Before ECOWAS undertook its initiative many, including the African media, were condemning the indifference demonstrated by Africa. The most desirable thing would have been to have an agreement of all parties to the conflict and the convergence of views of all members of ECOWAS. But to argue that there is no legal basis for intervention is surprising. Should the countries in West Africa just leave Liberians to fight each other? Will that be more legitimate? Will that be more understandable?"¹⁰

Obviously, Salim did not concur with the legal strictures that had been applied by earlier secretaries-general to conflicts. Without consulting the heads of state who are part of the political authority of the organisation, Salim emphatically stated: "I will rather make a mistake trying to solve the problem than to remain completely indifferent in a such a situation."¹¹

Encouraging as these statements were, the OAU had still not offered ECOWAS concrete assistance in its endeavours to bring peace to Liberia. Salim had to grapple constantly with technical and ideological issues concerning his interpretation of article 3 and ECOWAS’s new interventionist role. In May 1991, Salim evaluated ECOWAS’s intervention as "the first real attempt by African countries to [re]solve an African conflict." He anticipated that this experience will make Africans realise the need for a Joint High Command and military co-operation.¹² To him, ECOWAS’s actions had earned international respect for Africa, and he pledged continued OAU moral and political support. Yet, despite such rhetorical flourish, the issue of non-intervention was still unresolved. Museveni asserted that, when non-interference in the internal affairs of one another is mentioned, the reference is to one functioning state not interfering in another functioning state. Other parts of the continent should establish regional military groups to undertake similar ventures like that of ECOWAS in Liberia.¹³

Salim clarified the OAU’s conception and new interpretation of article 3:

"The Charter of the OAU does talk of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. But the charter ... at the same time, is based on the dignity and worth of the African ... With respect to the Liberian question, all I can say is that when people talk of an interference in ... Liberia, they should look back and remember what was happening in Monrovia before ECOMOG went there ... They should remember the criticisms that African countries were subjected to, both within Africa and especially outside Africa.

We have been accused of being totally indifferent to what was going on in Liberia. Nowhere in the OAU Charter does it refer to the term non-interference as meaning indifference ..."¹⁴

Closely related to the ‘Salim factor’ is the support extended to him in the rejuvenation of the OAU. These came from two former guerrilla fighters: Robert Mugabe and Yoweri Museveni. The latter’s role in getting the OAU not only to endorse Salim’s radical views, but ECOWAS’s scheme, was decisive in the Liberian effort. Salim’s role contradicted Akabogu’s position that the OAU’s efforts during the Liberian crisis only amounted to dusting off its articles on non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.¹⁵ The same applies to Ajebewa’s assertion that "the OAU watched helplessly while internal conflict devastated ... Liberia."¹⁶

Beginning with the first meeting of the Committee of Nine (C-9) in November 1992, ECOWAS leaders requested the OAU to appoint an eminent person to collaborate with its efforts to implement the peace plan.¹⁷ Subsequently, in December 1992, Canaan Banana, the former president of Zimbabwe, was appointed as the Special Representative of the OAU Secretary General to collaborate with the United Nations and ECOWAS in resolving the Liberian crisis. Banana’s duties were to:

collaborate with ECOWAS on the implementation of the ECOWAS peace plan;



ensure the observation of an immediate ceasefire by the warring parties;



deploy all efforts towards the holding of democratic elections;



represent the Secretary General, whenever appropriate, in all undertakings of the organisation with regard to the Liberian crisis and consult with and keep him fully informed on a regular basis of all developments in the Liberian situation;



visit Liberia as often as possible as the situation demands to establish contact, not only with the interim government in Monrovia, but with all warring parties of the country including, in particular, the NPFL; and



establish contact with the current chairperson of ECOWAS and the ECOWAS secretariat.¹⁸

 ECOWAS: FROM PESSIMISM TO OPTIMISM

ECOWAS’s transformation from an economic to a political integrative scheme started with the promulgation of the 1976 Non-Recourse to Aggression Treaty. Subsequently, in 1978, a Non-Aggression Protocol and the 1981 Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence were signed. Despite the opportunities created by these protocols and their subsequent revision in 1993, ECOWAS’s conflict management system was not based on the hypothetical institutions provided for. Rather, they were established because of the cognitive experiences resulting from the resolution of the Liberian war and the ongoing Sierra Leonean crisis.

These protocols provided for the establishment of diverse institutional mechanisms and administrative processes to be made operative during crises. Under the Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence, military components from ECOWAS member states constitute an Allied Armed Force of the Community (AAFC) under a joint commander. Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs constituted a Defence Council led by the current chairperson of the Authority, while the Chiefs of Staff formed a Defence Commission. Provision was made for a deputy executive secretary for military affairs.¹⁹

Procedures were also established on how an assaulted state should contact the defence structure, and what types of conflicts were envisaged as warranting community intervention. Three types of antagonistic military action deserving community response were defined:

aggression from non-member states;

conflict between member states; and

internal conflict in a member state.

Attached to these processes were procedural and administrative arrangements for communication with the Secretariat and for subsequent decisionmaking by the Authority.

Upon request for assistance from a member state threatened by a non-member state, the Authority would meet to decide the expediency for military action and entrust the subsequent enforcement to a force commander.²⁰ With conflict between member states, the Authority would deploy the AAFC as a peacekeeping force.²¹ In the case of internal conflict, when a conflict is actively maintained and sustained from outside, the Authority would respond as if the state is threatened by a non-member state. Significantly, however, in situations where the conflict remained purely internal, there would be no action taken by the Authority.²²

At the time when ECOWAS intervened in Liberia, none of these institutional and administrative mechanisms had been established. This eventually affected the performance of ECOMOG. One weakness of the procedures to create a structured and institutionalised defence mechanism was ECOWAS’s inability to establish the institutions it had agreed to set up. As a result, justification for the Liberian intervention was sought under the Non-Aggression Protocol, and not under the Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence.²³

This raised several issues. By August 1990, none of these institutions existed, although it was an integral part of the Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence’s decisionmaking process that deployments should be undertaken by the Council and the Authority. The Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence did not provide for alternative institutional arrangements for the independent performance of the Defence Commission if the Defence Council was dysfunctional or non-existent. The decision to intervene undermined the principle of unanimity that governed ECOWAS decisionmaking. What occurred in Liberia was the establishment of ad hoc institutions. These were the Standing Mediation Commission and the Committees of Five and Nine,²⁴ which not only resulted in disjointed action, but also in dysfunctional parallelism with respect to the decisionmaking processes. Thus, when ECOWAS intervened in the Liberian crisis, the Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence was nothing more than a policy declaration.²⁵

Despite ECOWAS and the OAU’s efforts at conflict management, several alternative schemes have been presented without taking sufficient cognisance of African initiatives. Recently, the United States in conjunction with the United Kingdom and France have initiated an African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI). However, this effort has been criticised by ECOWAS and the OAU. Consistent criticism of the ACRI also came from Nigeria. According to the former Nigerian Foreign Minister, Tom Ikimi:

"It is a matter for concern that every time Africa succeeds in formulating a common position on any critical issue, our external friends always manage to come up with an alternative solution. This has become a pattern on political, economic and social issues ... Now that we have succeeded in establishing a continental mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution, we are being confronted with a proliferation of uncoordinated initiatives ostensibly designed to enhance our capacity in peace support operations."²⁶

Ikimi, who had managed Nigeria’s foreign policy for four years, also had to defend Nigeria’s leadership of ECOMOG and its actions in Liberia to an increasingly sceptical international community suspicious of the country’s intentions. This has mostly resulted in unsophisticated and spurious analysis. For example, Ottaway claims that:

"When it comes to issues such as conflict resolution ... genuine African solutions vary considerably. The international community has approved some of these initiatives ... Others are more controversial, such as the interventions led by [ECOWAS and ECOMOG] in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The world placed its stamp of approval on ECOMOG as a laudable African peacemaking effort — but in so doing glossed over an unsettling development. Successive Nigerian military governments provided the bulk of ECOMOG peacekeeping forces, raising the specter of growing Nigerian hegemony over West Africa."²⁷

Ikimi’s perception that the presentation of the ACRI and criticisms such as those mentioned above should be seen as questionable, is deeply embedded. To him, the ‘evolutionary processes’ encompassed in ECOMOG and the OAU’s early warning mechanisms:

"[are] being interrupted by the interventionist and divisive policies of countries outside the continent. The naked pursuit of their own political and economic interests often ignores Africa’s own interests. A new scramble for Africa appears to be now underway."²⁸

According to Ikimi, Liberia was ignored and Somalia was abandoned "after the tragic loss of a few soldiers." Thus, to Ikimi, such a publicity-seeking intervention and undignified hasty retreat should not have occurred and "would have been avoided if [outside interveners] had paid appropriate attention to the complexities of the local situation in their training and preparation."²⁹ The lessons of the Somali debacle have seemingly not been learned either by the United States or its ideological partners. The sense of suspicion and uncertainty over the motives underlying the presentation of the ACRI is widespread in Africa. The general perception is that, instead of the international community striving to complement African efforts, endeavours are being made to supplant them. ECOWAS, however, is continuing with plans to apply its ECOMOG experiences in Liberia and Sierra Leone as a first step in forming a more structured security framework.

FROM AD HOC TO PERMANENT FRAMEWORK?

In the aftermath of the Liberian intervention, several processes were initiated to improve and increase the effectiveness of future interventions. ECOWAS began planning to apply its experiences in Liberia and Sierra Leone as a first step in forming a permanent mechanism. Two issues, however, have confronted ECOWAS leaders and strategists:

national sovereignty; and

the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states.³⁰

To this end, an extraordinary summit of the Authority was held in Lomé, Togo, in December 1997. It sought to shift the emphasis from the ad hoc conflict resolution procedures that ECOWAS utilised to respond to crises in the subregion to more permanent structures by establishing a mechanism for conflict prevention, management and peacekeeping.³¹ At this meeting, consensus was reached on the establishment of a mechanism for conflict prevention, management, resolution and peacekeeping. A technical document outlining the modalities for such a mechanism formed the basis of an experts meeting in July 1998. Its conclusions resulted in the Draft Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security. This document was adopted after exhaustive discussion. What is particularly interesting about the document are its points of similarity with the OAU’s early warning mechanism.

In the area of conflict prevention, management and resolution, some of the decisions reached here included the establishment of a Mediation and Security Council to harmonise decisionmaking on deployment. The Mediation and Security Council became a rotational system comprising nine countries elected for a two-year period with no permanent seats. It would operate at the level of heads of state, ministers of Foreign Affairs, and ambassadors. The Mediation and Security Council would be empowered to decide on issues concerning subregional peace and security. More importantly, the Mediation and Security Council would meet as often as necessary and possible to permit timely decisionmaking during crises.

To facilitate the work of the Council, a Committee of Ambassadors would have dual accreditation to the host state and ECOWAS, while a Defence and Security Commission would make recommendations to the Mediation and Security Council. Another critical institution, which dealt with threat perception analysis, was the early warning system and observatory.

The early warning system’s function is risk-mapping: that is, the observation and analysis of social, economic and political situations in the subregion with the potential to degenerate into conflict and to present appropriate threat perception analysis. Given that new conflicts have deep roots, an observatory would have to examine the causes of impending conflicts, and will collect and analyse the information and prepare a report. Upon completion of these reports, they would be transmitted to an Observation and Monitoring Centre based at the Executive Secretariat in Abuja. Here, the reports would be collated and suggestions on the appropriate strategy would be applied by the Mediation and Security Council and the countries concerned. To facilitate this, four offices were to be established in the subregion to collect and analyse relevant information. ECOWAS’s response mechanisms will be based on these reports, and the Executive Secretary will utilise them to formulate response strategies. Four options may be available to defuse any potential conflict:

establish a fact-finding mission;

employ the services of the Executive Secretary;

call on a Committee of Elders; or

intervene militarily.

The institutional and operational structures to be established under this mechanism have close similarities to the earlier Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence. Three major circumstances that could warrant community intervention were also identified. ECOWAS and its military force, ECOMOG, were empowered to intervene in internal situations that:

threaten to trigger a humanitarian disaster;



pose a serious threat to peace and security in the subregion; and



erupt following the overthrow or attempted overthrow of a democratically elected government.³²

ECOMOG would be the force for all forms of military intervention undertaken by ECOWAS. The third point deserves particular comment. Taking the nature of political instability in West Africa into consideration, it can be argued that its inclusion reflects a strengthening of the political ideas incorporated into the Declaration of ECOWAS Political Principles signed in Abuja in July 1991.³³ It sought to acknowledge the renewed preoccupation and reassertion of the fundamental rights and freedom of the individual. The values and norms that formed the principles upon which this document is anchored, are stated in the preamble and in articles 4, 5 and 6. These vowed to:

"respect [the] fundamental human rights of [ECOWAS citizens] as embodied in universally recognise [sic] international instruments on human rights and in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights."³⁴

Critically, the Declaration sought to:

"promote and encourage the full enjoyment by all our peoples of their fundamental human rights, especially their political, economic, social, cultural and other rights inherent in the dignity of the human person and essential to his free and progressive development."³⁵

Finally, ECOWAS leaders solemnly promised to ensure the liberty of the:

"individual and his inalienable right to participate by means of free and democratic processes framing the society in which he lives. We will therefore strive to encourage and promote in each of our countries, political pluralism and those representative institutions and guarantees for personal safety and freedom under the law that are our common heritage."³⁶

Since then, these principles have been incorporated into the revised ECOWAS Treaty of 1993, article 4(j). Yet, there is uncertainty over the relationship of this point with the other two. They are simply too vague and, without strict deployment guidelines, can be easily abused. The seriousness with which ECOWAS leaders regard these protocols may also be questioned. Since 1991, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and Togo have all infringed upon these principles without ECOWAS having the requisite power to elicit compliance.

AN INTERPRETIVE ANALYSIS

Despite the encouraging inroads that have been made with respect to the establishment of a functional conflict management system by ECOWAS, there is a feeling that this is familiar terrain. The extent to which these diverse conflict management systems have functioned in real situations deserves further discussion. For instance, since the ECOWAS conflict management system was approved in November 1998, four major incidents have occurred which have not only tested its resolve, but undermined its credibility and tarnished its image as a potentially effective and credible peace broker in the subregion. Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire have been characterised as the albatross around the community’s neck.³⁷

GUINEA-BISSAU

In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira was overthrown on 7 May 1999. This occurred after the presidential guard refused to disarm as called for under the Abuja Peace Accord in November 1998, which was intended to end a five-month civil war that started in June 1998.³⁸ Earlier in the crisis, ECOWAS seemed to have achieved a notable success when it brokered a powersharing arrangement between the combatants led by Ansumane Mane and João Vieira in the form of a transitional government under premier Francisco Fadul. Agreement was also reached on an ECOMOG force comprising troops from Nigeria, Niger, Benin, The Gambia and Mali under the modalities established by the Abuja agreement of 1 November on Guinea-Bissau. The ECOMOG forces were to supervise compliance by the two factions with the disarmament, demobilisation and encampment components of the Abuja agreement.³⁹

Vieira’s overthrow and the inability of ECOWAS’s innovative Mediation and Security Council to prevent the worsening of the crisis became a major setback for its credibility. According to Diop, ECOWAS’s spokesperson:

"[t]he problem is with the people who decided to oust Vieira. They signed an agreement last year and have violated the agreement. It suggests they cannot be trusted … It is a big disappointment for ECOWAS. We have tried to solve things in a peaceful manner. Elections were due in November. They could have waited to change the government through elections ... It undermines the sub-region."⁴⁰

The OAU was critical of these changes and appealed to the international community "to do everything possible to support an early return to constitutional legality in Guinea-Bissau."⁴¹ ECOWAS Executive Secretary, Lansana Kouyate, whose office plays a central role in the mechanism, was equally scathing in his criticism of events in Guinea-Bissau. Kouyate declared ECOWAS’s "expect[ation of] serious explanations from both Niger and Guinea-Bissau on why these coups d’état have happened. We can no longer accept the overrule of law in this way."⁴²

As a preventive mechanism, ECOWAS deployed a 600-member regional peacekeeping force as part of the Abuja agreement, which led to the instalment of a transitional government and the scheduling of early elections in the fall.

NIGER

The background to the recent crisis in Niger is found in the period after Maïnassara took power in January 1996 after a misunderstanding between president Mahamane Ousmane and premier Hama Amadou. Maïnassara subsequently arranged an election in July 1996, which he won, although his supporters lost the provincial elections in February 1999. During this election, the opposition controlled three councils in Niamey and 55 of the 72 councils in 15 of the 35 departments in the country. While the Supreme Court annulled the electoral results in 21 departments, 17 councils and five regions, the presidential party’s victory in two regions was validated.⁴³

On the eve of 9 April 1999, the opposition had called for demonstrations to protest against the Supreme Court’s cancellation of the results. It was against this background of political turmoil and misunderstanding that Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara was assassinated, and the head of the Presidential Guard, Daouda Malam Manké took over power. He has since been appointed head of state by the predominantly military National Reconciliation Council, established in Niamey to lead the country for a nine-month period.⁴⁴

SIERRA LEONE

Endemic political violence resulted in yet another change in government on 25 May 1997, when junior military officers, under the leadership of Major Johnny Paul Koromah, overthrew the Kabbah regime. It immediately established an Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and invited the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to join as junior partners in what was to become a much maligned and isolated government. In the aftermath of the coup d’état, the overthrown Kabbah government immediately requested the international community to reinstate his administration.⁴⁵

At the OAU’s summit in Harare, Zimbabwe in May 1997, the Council of Ministers:

"Strongly and unequivocally condemn[ed] the coup d’étât ... and call[ed] for the immediate restoration of constitutional order. [They] appeal[ed] to the leaders of ECOWAS to assist the people of Sierra Leone to restore constitutional order to the country ..."⁴⁶

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan⁴⁷ advocated for the forcible reinstatement of Kabbah if possible, and through Resolution 1132, "urge[d] all states to provide technical and logistical support to assist ECOWAS to carry out its operations."⁴⁸

In response to these three incidents, the ECOWAS Council of Ministers comprising foreign and defence ministers, met in Lomé, Togo, in late May 1999 to discuss the appropriate responses to these incidents. After several days of consultation, no agreement was reached and no substantive sanctions were imposed against Guinea-Bissau and Niger.⁴⁹

COTE D'IVOIRE

Since December 1999, the image of Côte d’Ivoire has been dramatically altered by the takeover by Robert Guei. Initial statements from the Guei regime claimed that the army had come to clean up the stables. Since the early optimism that greeted the takeover, recent statements and policy options presented by Guei’s National Committee for Public Salvation have failed to calm the persistent nervousness. On the contrary, a number of registered opposition groups such as the oldest opposition party, Front populaire ivoirien (FPI) and its party leader, Laurent Gbagbo, are increasingly sidelined. These marginalisation processes are also meant to be a clear message. While democracy did not mean a licence to threaten the authority and hegemony of the dynasty of the ruling Parti démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) under the former democratic dispensation, it is increasingly becoming clear that Guei does not intend to give much leeway to other stakeholders in the democracy debate.

When Gbagbo eventually came to power in October 2000, following mass protests that chased Guei off, he did not reverse the decision that disqualified former prime minister Alhassan Ouattara from the presidential elections and proved unable to halt the violence. Once reknowned for economic and political stability, the country is wracked by turmoil and divided among ethnic and religious lines.

CONCLUSION: WHITHER THE ECOWAS CONFLICT MECHANISM SCHEME? 

Any conclusions being drawn about the ECOWAS conflict mechanism must be tentative. Both Kouyate and Diop’s assertion of the lack of trust and non-acceptance of political violence does not reflect the realities in West Africa realistically. What are the implications for the conflict management system? Arguably, several critical issues have to be confronted if ECOWAS’s mechanism is to attain credibility. If institutional history is important, then this will have to take into account occurrences in Liberia and Sierra Leone.⁵⁰ Analysts have argued that the nature of the resolution of the Liberian crisis had:

"implicitly legitimated ‘warlordism’ as a feasible procedure for acquiring state power, and since self-succession is a particular West African contribution to democratic transitions ... such ... outcome[s] will be an unstable West African sub-region in the coming years ... and the election of Taylor to the Liberian presidency has in a small but an unmistakable manner lit a fuse under the whole West African sub-regional scheme."⁵¹

This seems to have come true for the increasing efforts to resolve the crisis in Sierra Leone. Increasingly, the RUF plays an active role not only in the negotiations to end the conflict, but also in deciding the nature of the post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction of the state. If ECOWAS is unable to restrain the use of force as a legitimate political tool to win power after the crises in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, its political principles and the criteria for intervention by the mechanism would have been undermined.

There is a possibility that whatever lessons can be drawn from these examples cannot necessarily be applied to other individual national cases or African subregions without some form of modification. It may be that specific country analyses can assist ECOMOG and, for that matter, the OAU to perceive early warning signs of political, social, economic and ethnic crises. To avert future crises, some of the lessons from ECOWAS’s West Africa experiences are important:

Design of warning methodologies: such methodologies should include information that comprises starting boundaries for any such system. These can include historical surveys and analyses of events; comparative analyses of relevant information; physical inspection and field visits; modelling and remote-sensing. Such information can be placed in three broad categories: red for states in crises; orange/yellow for states showing early signs of crises, green for other states. It could include political indicators; physical security indicators; the level of militarisation in society; social indicators, and economic and environmental indicators. Finally, a profile should be compiled of eminent persons to be called upon to apply "African traditional practice as a guide."⁵² Although early warning is important, the ability to initiate early action or responses is equally crucial.



The issue of early warning: this lesson deals with the establishment of systems of early warning and reactions to political crises. In the West African case, this will need to be strengthened under the auspices of ECOWAS to use economic, ‘culturally sensitive’ and other relevant indicators to design a conflict threat evaluation. One approach is to survey and react to all socio-political and economic incidents that may lead to conflict.



An in-depth understanding of the local dynamics fuelling the conflict: this is yet another monitoring approach that should consist of conferring with different segments of the population affected by obvious economic and political patterns of inclusion and exclusion.



Risk-mapping: this should be introduced to provide a constant and updated range of verifiable information that can point to the potential for a crisis erupting in a specific place. This will help in identifying countries or groups that are either being persecuted or have the potential to cause conflict. This should rely on the use of local informants with credibility. This method provides another possibility of identifying crisis factors that can result in conflict by using a recommended checklist of evidence for regimes and other multilateral organisations to monitor emergency feasibilities in politically unstable areas.⁵³

M Ottaway, Africa, Foreign Affairs, Spring 1999, pp 20-21. The very subjective variables that are used in this discussion are also demonstrated by Ottaway.



Dawn of a new realism, West Africa, 7-13 August 1990, pp 1290-1291.



A Sesay, The OAU and regime recognition: Politics of discord and collaboration in Africa, Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives 3, 1985.



There is an interesting coincidence between Salim Ahmed Salim’s appointment in 1989 and Abbas Bundu’s appointment around the same period. In Salim’s acceptance speech, he stated, inter alia: "we are nearing the end of the second most difficult decade for Africa. These have been decades of near economic disintegration, of disasters and acute human suffering ... [B]ut [I] recognise that in the long run, Africa’s development is Africa’s own responsibility ... Africa needs to get organised ... to shake off Africa’s image of a continent ... where human life is taken for granted ... These are shared problems. Cooperation is the key to fully integrated and centrally coordinated strategy to deal with them." West Africa, op cit (emphasis added).



The OAU is concerned enough with the different initiatives to resolve African conflicts without resort to African initiatives that it had to make its concerns clear. See OAU’s position towards the various initiatives on conflict management: Enhancing OAU’s capacity in preventive diplomacy, conflict resolution and peacekeeping, Central Organ/MEC/MIN/3 (IV).



These included The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.



Daily Times, Nigeria, 6 July 1990.



The Guardian, Nigeria, 20 August 1990.



Daily Times, Nigeria, 23 August 1990.



West Africa, 13-19 August 1990.



Ibid.



The Guardian, Nigeria, 8 May 1991; African Concord, Nigeria, 22 April 1991.



ECOWAS, Mediation in the Liberian crisis, nd, p 8.



The Guardian, Nigeria, 10 May 1991; Interview, 17 December 1995 (emphasis added).



C Akabogu, ECOWAS takes the initiative, in M A Vogt (ed), The Liberian crisis and ECOMOG: A bold attempt at regional peacekeeping, Gambumo, Lagos, 1992, p 73.



AIAjebewa, Regional security in West Africa: A comparative study with special reference to the OAU peacekeeping force in Chad and the ECOMOG in Liberia, unpublished doctoral thesis, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, 1994, p 257.



Since 1990, the OAU has been party to 21 meetings or agreements on Liberia.



OAU, OAU Conflict Management Review, Addis Ababa, 1996.



The functions included devising plans for troop movements and logistics, launching collective military manoeuvres, formulating and administering the military budget of the secretariat, and reviewing and recommending proposals to the Executive Secretary, about issues relating to personnel and equipment. See also Protocol on Mutual Assistance on Defence, 1981, article 12(i).



Ibid, articles 6(3) and 16.



Ibid, article 17.



Ibid, article 19.



Ibid, articles 7(i), 9 and 11(i).



For details of these ad hoc conflict resolution systems, see EK Aning, Negotiation, conflict and compromise: The Liberian challenge to a security regime, ACCORD Occasional Paper 2, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, Durban, 1999.



GJYoroms & EK Aning, From economic to political integration: Towards an analysis of the transformation of ECOWAS, Africa Peace Review 2(1), October 1997, p 40.



Peacekeeping African style, West Africa, 4-7 May 1998, p 430.



Ottaway, op cit, pp 18-19.



West Africa, 4-7 May 1998. op cit, p 431.



Ibid, p 430. See also F Olonisakin, African ‘homemade’ peacekeeping initiatives, Armed Forces and Society 23(3), 1997.



For an analysis of the changing international perception to intervention vis-à-vis national sovereignty, see F Olonisakin & E K Aning, Human rights and peacekeeping: The contradictions in ECOMOG, International Journal of Human Rights 3(1), 1999. On sovereignty, see P Haslam, Globalization and effective sovereignty: A theoretical approach to the state in international political economy, Studies in Political Economy 58, Spring 1999, pp 41 ff.



See ibid; ECOWAS summit: Progress report, West Africa, 19 October — 1 November 1998, p 772; ECOWAS, Memorandum on the ECOWAS Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security, Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Abuja, 26-27 October 1998; ECOWAS, Draft Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security, Abuja, 23-24 July 1998.



See Memorandum on the ECOWAS Mechanism, ibid, section 21, subsections 1-3. These three points seem to have captured the political dynamics on the West African subregion. While points 1 and 2 are vague and need to be more precise, point 3 reflects the political instability of the subregion. For a sophisticated comparative analysis of reported, attempted overthrow and successful overthrows of both military and democratically elected governments, see P McGowan & T H Johnson, African military coups d’état and underdevelopment: A quantitative historical analysis, Journal of Modern African Studies 22(4), 1984.



See ECOWAS Briefs, Declaration of ECOWAS Political Principles, Executive Secretariat of ECOWAS, Lagos.



Ibid, article 4.



Ibid, article 5.



Ibid, article 6; West Africa, 19-23 July 1993, p 1247 (emphasis added).



T Okerebge, ECOMOG’s albatross in Sierra Leone, Reuters, 17 January 1999.



B Hatton, Guinea-Bissau rebels storm capital, Associated Press, 7 May 1999. Most of Guinea-Bissau’s 6 000-strong army support the rebels and much of the country’s 1.1 million population. Vieira himself seized power in a coup in 1980 after the country had won its independence through a liberation struggle from Portugal in 1975. Its first democratic elections were in 1994. For a background analysis of the liberation struggle, see B Davidson, The liberation of Guiné: Aspects of an African revolution, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969.



For details, see Africa Confidential 39(18); African Research Bulletin [Political series], 1-28 February 1999, p 13482-C.



ECOWAS credibility dented in Guinea-Bissau, Agence France Presse, 10 May 1999, <www.reliefweb.int> (emphasis added).



OAU condemns coup in Guinea-Bissau, Pan African News Agency, 10 May 1999, <www.reliefweb.int>.



West African foreign ministers meet on Sierra Leone, Niger and Guinea-Bissau, Agence France Presse, 24 May 1999, <www.relief.web.int>.



See Africa Research Bulletin 36(4), 1-30 April 1999, pp 13495-8. Several presidents, among them from Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, The Gambia, as well as ECOWAS, the United Nations, the United States and France condemned the violent death. However, civil society groups in Niger, Angola, Cameroon and South Africa supported the incident.



For further details, see Africa Confidential 40(8), 16 April 1999, p 8; Africa Confidential 37(3), January 1999; Africa Research Bulletin 36(4), 1-30 April 1999, p 13496.



See Tougher measures against junta in Freetown, and Kabbah urges ECOWAS leaders to restore him to power, Pan African News Agency, 2 September 1997.



Organisation of African Unity Council of Ministers Sixty-sixth Ordinary Session, 28-30 May 1997, Harare, Zimbabwe, Draft Decisions, CM/Draft/Dec. (LXVI) Rev.1, no 18. OAU leaders subsequently condemned the coup d´état on 4 June 1997 and called on the international community not to recognise the junta, and specifically appealed to the leaders of ECOWAS "to assist the people of Sierra Leone to restore constitutional order to the country." For a discussion of other initiatives taken by the OAU to resolve this crisis, see A Coleman, The OAU focal point on Sierra Leone, OAU: Resolving Conflicts, October — November 1996, pp 13-16.



See United Nations Secretary-General’s Second Report on Sierra Leone (S/1997/958).



Several resolutions were passed by the UN Security Council dealing with the Sierra Leone crisis. See for example the Fourth Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Sierra Leone, UN 53rd session, UN Doc. S/1998/249 (1998); UNSC Doc. S/RES/1156 (1998)



West African foreign ministers meet on Sierra Leone, Niger and Guinea-Bissau, op cit. At the meeting, Kouyate demanded that an "investigation into the assassination is the very minimum that new authorities should do in order to reassure the country and the international community that justice will prevail. Kouyate seems to allow diplomatic niceties to colour the desire for a detailed analysis of the crisis in Niger and Maïnassara’s role in worsening the situation." Interestingly enough, the Community of Sahel and Saharan States, at their summit in Sirte, Libya on 14 April 1999 excluded Niger. See Africa Research Bulletin 36(4), 1-30 April 1999, pp 13498ff.



GJYoroms & E K Aning, West African regional security in the post-Liberian conflict era: Issues and perspectives, CDR Working Paper 97.7, 1997.



Ibid, pp 19 & 22.



See ECOWAS, Memorandum on the ECOWAS Mechanism, op cit. For further information on the OAU Mechanism, see OAU, Summary record of the seminar for the establishment, within the OAU of an early warning system on conflict situations in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 15-18 January 1996.



The potential role of civil society for the success of the mediation and security councils is critical. See OAU/IPA, Civil society and conflict management in Africa: Report of the IPA/OAU Consultation, Cape Town, 29 May — 2 June 1999.