Chapter 10

The Security Imperatives of the Crises in West Africa:
Preliminary Thoughts

Introduction

West Africa is currently witnessing multiple and hydra-headed conflict situations. These situations are best described by the notion of a regime of dictatorship, of both the economic and political domains. Okon identifies five kinds of conflict: boundary conflict, conflict of governance, conflict of economic development, conflict resulting from foreign intervention, and conflict arising from the miniaturisation of society. For him, these all culminate in élite conflict, mass or communal conflict, and revolutionary conflict.1

There is no West African country that is not experiencing one or another of the kinds of conflict mentioned above:

Burkina Faso is facing a severe crisis resulting from human rights abuses and the ‘stay-in-office’ syndrome.



The Casamance crisis is deepening in Senegal.



In Côte d’Ivoire, the ruling party of ousted President Bédie was the first to legitimise the new regime after the coup of December 1999, and to offer his co-operation with its leaders.



In Guinea Bissau, the deposing of Vieira has led to carnage and a near civil war situation.



In Ghana, exiles are still struggling against Rawlings, claiming that he has a succession plan in which his wife is being positioned to take over the next government as president. Ghana has never witnessed this kind of economic crisis in its entire history with the Cedi being devalued every week for months. Indeed, from October 1999 to April 2000, the Cedi has devalued by 1 000%.



In Togo, the opposition forces led by the son of the slain President Sylvanus Olympio are still insisting that Eyadema rigged himself back to power.



The economic hardship in Benin intensified and became protracted since Matthew Kerekou became president. The current economic crisis is deepening.



The political crisis in Niger and Mali remain unresolved as the clamour of people for genuine democracy rather than incessant killings has not been accepted by the ruling class.



In Nigeria, the oil-minority question and separatist agitations are still unresolved. Recently, the issue around the reintroduction of Sharia law saw the mindless massacre of no less than 5 000 Nigerians in Kaduna town.

No matter how individual member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have attempted to cover up their internal crises, they all suffer from ill-health. But, this ill-health is a result of the fact that, in a fundamental sense, there is no democratic and accountable government in the entire subregion. Some of the governments are military, others are party-dominated governments sitting tight, yet others are foreign-driven, neo-liberal and unaccountable governments. The various so-called reforms and programmes to open up undertaken by of these regimes have virtually led to the consolidation of the hegemony of the ruling class and the exploitation deprivation and impoverishment of the toiling masses of the subregion. Economically, in many of the countries, negative growth has been recorded for more than ten years.

The ECOWAS-ECOMOG debacle

The formation of ECOWAS was the outcome of the signing of the Lagos treaty in 1975. From the outset, Francophone African countries were suspicious of its formation. They viewed it as an attempt to impose Nigeria’s hegemony in the subregion, with the most vocal opponents being Félix Houphouét-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire and Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal. Indeed, Côte d’Ivoire, along with other Francophone countries such as Gabon, had supported Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. Part of the lesson Nigeria learned from the war was that there was a need for a subregional organisation where the problems of the subregion could be discussed. It is a paradox that the initiative for ECOWAS was guided by the imperative for collective security, yet, the outcome was an economic platform. Part of the reason for this may be found in the obstacles and difficulties posed by some Francophone countries. When the Francophone countries were proving too difficult, General Yakubu Gowon, then Nigeria’s head of state, approached Togo’s President Eyadema, and after long talks, Eyadema agreed to persuade other Francophone West Africa countries to join in the initiative. Sékou Touré’s Guinea was the only Francophone country that departed from the orthodoxy. Indeed, Houphouét-Boigny also did not sign the Lagos treaty, but, however, did reluctantly accept the idea of ECOWAS.

ECOWAS is, in essence, an economic group with the major objective of facilitating internal trade and monetary integration in the subregion. For these reasons, member countries agreed to the clause calling for the free movement of citizens, goods and capital. But, many issues crippled the economic objectives of ECOWAS, including the four Lomé conventions and the parallel Francophone networks that were put in place to undermine ECOWAS. These included a Francophone currency — the CFA franc — a joint bank with headquarters in Dakar, and several defence and cultural pacts with France, all in the spirit of pacta sunt servanda. Yet, these initiatives undermined the spirit and objectives of ECOWAS. Even France created the Franco-African summit just to undermine the Organisation of African Unity — it served as a parallel purpose for Francophone West Africa. What is curious in all this is the vigour, tenacity and commitment with which Francophone African states pursued the French agenda to the prejudice and detriment of the African or West African agenda. By July 1977, the Francophone countries of West Africa had gathered in Abidjan to sign the Accord de non-agression et de coopération en matière de défense (ANAD). The signatories were Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal and Togo. This, in part, led ECOWAS to sign the Non-aggression pact in Lagos in May 1978 and later, in 1981, the Mutual Assistance on Defence (MAD) agreement was adopted. The contention is that, contrary to what appeared in the literature on these issues, the historical sequence of these events needs to be appreciated. The central point here is that, by 1981, for all practical purposes, Francophone countries that saw MAD as an initiative of the Anglophone West African countries had abandoned ECOWAS. The perception was that everything created within the ECOWAS framework, clearly showed the hand of Nigeria, and fingers were always pointed in accusation that it was attempting to dominate the rest of the subregion. Most initiatives were interpreted as such, and member states of the subregion that are not Anglophone would therefore rather not support an action with a Nigerian influence.

It is in this spirit that the events should be seen that culminated in the establishment of the ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau. Two other points need to be underscored here, albeit briefly. Firstly, Nigeria is the only country in Africa that is bordered only by Francophone countries— Chad to the north-east, Cameroon to the east, Niger to the north-west, Benin to the west and São Tomé to the south. The latter was used as a springboard in support of Biafra. Part of the support for Biafra by the Francophone countries in Africa arose from the fact that France supported Biafra. Mercenaries of French origin fought alongside the Biafran. Secondly, Nigeria had either been involved in controversial issues with these countries or went to war with them for a similar reason for years. Nigeria was the dominant nation in the OAU peacekeeping force in Chad in 1979-1981. The force was involved in controversy when the government of Goukonni Waddaye was overthrown by the rebel forces of Hissese Habré. The blame was placed on Nigeria. Nigeria was also involved in territorial clashes with Cameroon over the oil-rich border town of Bakassi. This led to the killing of several soldiers and civilians on both sides. These controversial events — with Nigeria as dramatis personae — took place in 1981 at about the same time the MAD was signed.

How did ECOMOG come about and what is the basis of the controversy surrounding it? Indeed, the simplest interpretation that can be given to the 1978 and 1981 ECOWAS treaties is that they had forced the Community to venture into the defence or military arena. The depth of this involvement is only subject to the way in which the relevant clauses in the treaties are interpreted. ECOMOG meant that ECOWAS had gone beyond its original mandate that was purely economic in content. In articles 2, 3 and 4, the Protocol on non-aggression is very explicit. It is necessary to quote them extensively because of the current erroneous ‘internal affairs’ thesis that is used to condemn or undermine the ECOMOG mandate. The point here is not to judge the political correctness of these articles, but rather to establish precisely what the documents say. It is one thing to question the principles and quite another to quarrel with the politics. It will be wrong, however, not to make an analytical distinction between principles and politics. Part of the disagreement among ECOWAS member states about ECOMOG arises from this confusion — this is without prejudice to the mind-set or fixation existing among Francophone members of the Community.

"Each Member State shall refrain from committing, encouraging or condoning acts of subversion, hostility or aggression against the territorial integrity or political independence of other Member States" (article 2).

"Each Member State shall undertake to prevent foreigners resident on its territory from committing the acts referred to in Article 2 above against the sovereignty and integrity of other Member States" (article 3).

"Each Member state shall undertake to prevent non-resident foreigners from using its territory as a base for committing the acts referred to in Article 2 above against the sovereignty and integrity of Member States" (article 4).

The proponents of the ‘internal affairs’ thesis have raised issues about the above clauses. Yet, nowhere in these clauses does the protocol envisage or refer to internal conflicts. The claim is that, on account of these articles, ECOMOG had no right to intervene in Liberia, since the events in the country were purely its own internal affair. This view was clearly canvassed, particularly by the Francophone countries led by Houphouét-Boigny and Blaise Campoare. But, these leaders had reasons for canvassing their views rather than what is states in the clauses. This will be returned to later in this paper.

In respect of MAD, ECOWAS agreed to the formation of the Allied Forces of the Community (AFFC). In Chapter II, section 1, article 6(3), it states: "The Authority shall act on the expediency of military action and entrust its execution to the Force commander of Allied Forces of the Community." Article 8(2) states: "In an emergency, the Defence Council shall examine the situation, the strategy to be adopted and the means of intervention to be used."

These sections and subsections have been given all kinds of interpretations, often bordering on misrepresentation, Lined and coloured by politics. The political rather than the legal basis of ECOMOG’s action has thus been given undue importance. Underlying this is the fact that the legal issues contained in the various legal instruments of ECOWAS are open-ended and, in the absence of genuine and sober interpretation, politics simply takes over. As for politics, it is not a matter of who is wrong or right, but a question of in whose favour the balance of forces is. This has further widened the gulf between Anglophone and Francophone West African countries. The interest of the latter was further united with that of France. The question may be asked, what France’s interest is in all this. Can binary oppositions be identified in the understanding of French relations with Africa — your loss is my gain, and vice versa? What is the most healthy basis for containing French interest in a pan-African community? Or are both inherently contradictory? French mercenaries, it should be stated, were involved in the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and their traders were involved in mining in the two countries during the period of the wars. South African mercenaries were recruited through Executive Outcomes (EO), first by Captain Valentine Strasser and later by Tejjan Kabbah, at a rate of US $1.5 million per day to help ward off the rebels.

ECOMOG: The politics of Liberia and Sierra Leone

General Ibrahim Babangida, at the time Nigeria’s head of state, urged ECOWAS to establish a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC) for the Community. Its main role would be to intervene whenever a crisis broke out. By 1990, the SMC convened an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Freetown, with the major preoccupation to ensure a cease-fire in Liberia among the forces of Sergeant Doe and the rebel groups, led by Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). It was in this spirit that ECOMOG was formed and asked to enter Liberia in August 1990.

The Francophone West Africa States protested that the Mediation Committee had no right to create a peace-keeping force without the consummate Authority of Heads of State of ECOWAS. According to the 1981 Protocol relating to Mutual Assistance on Defence ‘the Authority of ECOWAS is the only organ to authorise the creation and movement of the ECOWAS force’. The ECOMOG force, it was argued, was not properly constituted, due consultation was not carried out and the ECOMOG force should not have been deployed in an internal conflict situation in the first place.

Several points need to be underscored here:

Before this initiative, Babangida had secretly supplied arms to Doe to fight the rebels. This created an anti-Nigerian feeling among the rebels and their allies, principally Campoare and Houphouét-Boigny. The former was said to have assisted Taylor’s forces in military training and the procurement of arms through Libya. Indeed, Thomas Sankara was said to have been killed in October 1988, the month Taylor entered Ouagadougou. Houphouét-Boigny was aggrieved because Doe killed his father-in-law, William Tolbert, in order to take over power.



Doe had urged the University of Liberia to establish the Babangida School of International Affairs. Some Nigerian scholars were drafted there to teach. Nigeria also convinced the African Development Bank to reschedule the US $35 million debt of Liberia.



The decision by the SMC to establish ECOMOG and the move to get the force into Liberia were never approved by the heads of state summit meeting of ECOWAS. Indeed, the first summit meeting took place in Bamako in November 1990. This was three months after ECOMOG had moved into Liberia. It was convened as an extraordinary summit meeting because of the urgency and gravity of the crisis at hand. This became an additional grudge of the Francophone countries. It was at the Bamako meeting that concrete decisions about a national conference culminating in an interim government and subsequently in general elections were reached. All other parties accepted this except Taylor.



There was still heavy fighting on the ground when ECOMOG moved into Liberia under the Ghanaian field commander, Lieutenant-General Arnold Quainoo. The General was basically unsure of what to do in light of the situation on the ground. He was therefore replaced by a Nigerian army general, Joshua Dogonyaro. Since then, all subsequent field commanders of ECOMOG were Nigerian (Kupulati, Olurin, Bakut, Inienger, and others).



The SMC consisted mainly of Anglophone countries and some reluctant Francophone countries (Nigeria, Ghana, The Gambia, Mali and Togo). Both Togo and Mali refused to contribute troops to the initial ECOMOG force in Liberia.



The ECOMOG force systematically grew from 4 000 to 6 000 to 10 000, and eventually to 15 000. Of this total, Nigeria contributed 10 000 of the force and also provided close to 90% of the financial support.



It was under the first Nigerian ECOMOG commander that the mandate changed from that of peacekeeping to peace enforcement. This continued for three years until General Adetunji Olurin took over to pursue a more traditional peacekeeping role. But, this was also occasioned by several other factors.

The SMC has been expanded from a group of five to nine countries to gain greater legitimacy. At the time, it included prominent Francophone countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Ghana and Nigeria were also members. Soglo of Benin was the ECOWAS chairperson. The need for change was clearly noted when Francophone countries formed their own ‘group of five’ comprising Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia. As Mortimer notes, "the Committee effectively supplanted the SMC as the primary diplomatic actor."2

A set of decisions followed that initially took on a less military and more political character. The decisions involved the ECOWAS heads of state summit meeting and embraced the Francophone leaders in a more inclusive way. The objective was to see how Liberian warlords were going to pave the way for the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU), headed by Amos Sawyer (favoured by Nigeria) and for general elections to take place. It was felt that the killing of Doe at the ECOMOG headquarters by Yormie Johnson (who was favoured by ECOMOG, partly because he headed a splinter group of the NPFL) would facilitate the peace process. This was a mistaken view as more splinter groups emerged, such as ULIMO-Mandigo and ULIMO-Krahn (the latter was seen to fight the cause of Doe partly because its members came from the same ethnic group and some of them were former presidential guards).

The most important of the events that followed were:

the ECOWAS heads of state summit meeting in Bamako, 27-28 November 1990;

the joint statement by the three warring groups in Liberia in Banjul, 21 December 1990;

the third summit meeting of the SMC in Lomé, 12-13 February 1991;

the joint declaration on the Liberian situation in Lomé, 1 March 1991;

the All-Liberian National Conference in Monrovia, 15 March — 20 April 1991;

the fourth summit of ECOWAS, 4-6 July 1991, and the four Yamoussoukro mini-summits;

the informal consultation of the ECOWAS Committee of Five in Geneva, 6-7 April 1992; and

the Ministerial Evaluation Meeting of the ECOWAS Committee of Five in Dakar, 1 May 1992.

From the above, it may be discerned that there was greater Francophone participation soon after the Bamako summit meeting. Indeed, after the Yamoussoukro meeting, Houphouét-Boigny became genuinely involved with the process and some of the consultations that took place in Geneva were at his insistence, on his sick bed.

Another player that must not escape mention is the United States. Ordinarily, the US should have been concerned about the Liberian crisis because of its historical connection to the Americo-Liberians. But, the country merely evacuated its citizens. Much later, it supported the peace process indirectly through Senegal. Under Diouf’s leadership as ECOWAS chairperson, the US agreed to provide support for the military equipment needs of Senegal to the value of US $15 million. In addition, it wrote off Senegal’s debt of US $45 million. As a result of this, Senegal sent 1 500 troops to join the ECOMOG force. The United Nations under Boutros-Ghali was invited by ECOWAS to contribute to the peace process in Liberia and it agreed to participate in the election monitoring exercise. Mosha was asked to assess the situation on the ground in Liberia. The OAU sent Canaan Banana on a similar mission. In order to legitimise ECOMOG and in the light of calls for its expansion, the OAU agreed to finance the participation of three East African countries in the peacekeeping effort. The broadening of the peacekeeping initiative assisted the peace process significantly, as did its internationalisation, following the involvement of the OAU and the UN.

It is matter of conjecture whether there would have been peace if Charles Taylor lost the elections in Liberia.

In respect of Sierra Leone, Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Force (RUF) has been closely associated with Taylor since its inception. Indeed, Taylor introduced Sankoh to Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi who was said to have sponsored Sankoh’s military training. After being trained, he returned to fight for Taylor’s NPFL in Liberia. He had been implicated in attempted military coups in Sierra Leone in the 1970s and was imprisoned for his involvement. It was after his release from prison that he found his way to Liberia and then to Libya. Many of the guerrillas of both the RUF and NPFL were trained by the same people and had many things in common, including the manner of conscripting child soldiers and vandalising property. From the beginning, Taylor supported the Sierra Leonean rebels. The RUF launched its first attack in March 1991 in Bomaru and Sienga, both small towns in the Kailahum district in eastern Sierra Leone, with the objective of overthrowing the government of Joseph Momoh. It was during the RUF insurgence that some junior officers took over power of the country on 29 April 1992. They were led by Captain Valentine Strasser who overthrew the government of Joseph Momoh accusing it of not pursuing the RUF-induced war in a decisive manner and for starving troops of weapons and logistics. Strasser established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) and promised to overrun the RUF in a short time. Determined to do this, the government increased the strength of the army to 14 000. Many of the recruits were youths. By April 1995, the war had escalated. Strasser contacted the South African-based Executive Outcomes (EO) to send mercenaries to support him. However, in January 1996, Brigadier Maada Bio toppled Captain Stasser with the help of EO-trained units under his control. This led to a 28-article peace accord in Abidjan. The accord, among others, called for:

the demobilisation and resettlement of combatants;



the transformation of the RUF into a political party;



the establishment of a UN-controlled monitoring committee and a joint monitoring group consisting of all the warring factions;



the withdrawal of foreign forces (particularly EO);



the conduct of general elections; and



the implementation of socio-economic reforms.

The result was the election victory of Tejjan Kabbah’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). However, Kabbah transformed the Kamajors (a civil defence group opposed to both the government forces and the RUF), into a modern private army with modern rifles, rewarded for their service by paying them allowances. The Kamajors came from the predominantly Mende people. By May 1997, the Kamajors numbered 20 000. They were trained by both the Nigerian Army and EO. Their leader, Chief Sam Hinga-Norman was appointed as the deputy defence minister of Sierra Leone. This irked the standing army and, partly as a result, Major Johnny-Paul Koroma overthrew the government. On 23 October 1997, ECOWAS organised a peace plan, urging the warring factors to adhere to the Abidjan accord. This yielded no dividends.

On 18 February 1998, a combined team of the Nigerian Army, the Kamajors and 200 Sandline International mercenaries launched land and air attacks on Freetown, and eventually deposed the Junta, uprooted the rebels and restored Kabbah to power. At this time, ECOMOG had completed its mission in Liberia, and smoothly moved into Sierra Leone to join forces with other groups struggling to oust the rebels. ECOMOG successfully took over Freetown and the State House on 12 February 1998. Koroma was forced to flee. Meanwhile, Sankoh, who was also involved, was lured to Nigeria and put under house arrest during the period when Koroma was in power. The Sierra Leone crisis culminated in the Lomé Peace Accord, charted in line with UN guidelines on security and disarmament. The accord states, inter alia, that there is a need for the encampment, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of combatants. Mercenaries are to be withdrawn with immediate effect from Sierra Leone and ECOMOG is to be transformed into a peacekeeping body similar to the UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL). Its membership should be broadened to include as many countries as possible.3 The agreement granted pardon to the rebels and gave them lucrative posts in the government. For instance, Foday Sankoh was appointed as vice-president of Sierra Leone by default. He was given the portfolio of the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development. This gave him control over the mining and marketing of gold and diamonds, among others. Many saw this accord as rewarding treason and rebellion in a war in which Sierra Leone lost about 50 000 people out of a population of 4.4 million. One fundamental moral question arose in the Sierra Leone crisis. Nigerian president at the time, General Sani Abacha, stated that he wanted to restore democracy in Sierra Leone by ousting the rebels from power. Nigerians and Sierra Leoneans questioned the moral basis of his attitude. After all, he was a military and not a democratic ruler himself, but more fundamentally, he himself annulled an election in his own country and jailed the president-elect.

ECOMOG also participated in the peacekeeping initiative in Guinea Bissau after rebel attacks necessitated the government to invite Senegalese and Guinean (Conakry) troops to assist it. Following the Abuja Peace Accord of 31 October 1995, it was agreed that all foreign troops should be withdrawn and a cease-fire declared. This was to pave the way for ECOMOG forces. Although ECOMOG actually deployed forces to the country, fighting did not cease as the rebels protested the inability of ECOMOG to disarm the presidential guard that mainly originated from Vieira’s ethnic group, the Pepel. Indeed, ECOMOG exacerbated the crisis. Eventually, Vieira had to flee the country and, in the process, the current government had to succumb to pressure to address issues of human rights abuses. Mass graves are being discovered daily, so are secret documents about plots against the opposition forces.

Cost of ECOMOG

ECOMOG has been run at great social, financial and political cost to the subregion and, particularly, to Nigeria. Socially, Nigerians were unable to integrate properly into the subregion as they were seen as exacerbating the crisis in Liberia. The NPFL specifically targeted civilians of Nigerian origin during the war and murdered them in cold blood. Those murdered included the renowned Nigerian journalist, Chris Imodibie of The Guardian. Politically, Nigeria became isolated, but more so because the military junta of Abacha had annulled an election that was free and fair. The US and the entire European Union (EU) had placed all sorts of embargoes on Nigeria. Hence, although those countries wanted to assist in the Liberian crisis, they were hesitant if not reluctant to do so. Many of them had channelled their assistance indirectly. For instance, apart from the money provided to Senegal by the US, some US $10 million was spent in 1996 by the US government to purchase military equipment for Guinea, Mali, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The British government spent £20 million on ECOMOG with an additional pledge of £30 million. In terms of financial cost, nobody seems to know exactly how much was spent on ECOMOG. Tom Ikim, Nigeria’s foreign minister, once quoted a figure of US $4 billion, while Abacha himself made reference to US $3 billion back in 1997.4 Meanwhile, ECOMOG remained active in Liberia and later in Sierra Leone until 1999. If Abacha’s figures were available, then it can be hypothesised that about US $7 billion were spent on ECOMOG. The government of President Olesegun Obasanjo is yet to release current financial figures spent by Nigeria on ECOMOG.

ANAD and the Francophone divide

There is no doubt that the French influence in West Africa is very high. For instance, when Mali and Burkina Faso had bitter clashes in 1985, Nigeria offered to mediate. But, both countries turned down this gesture and took the matter to ANAD countries that eventually settled it.

ANAD is a more stable and institutionalised organisation than ECOMOG. Formed by seven Francophone countries in July 1987 — Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo — ANAD consists of three organs: the Summit of Heads of States and Governments, the Council of Ministers and the permanent Secretariat. The Secretariat has 40 staff members. Although Admiral Diam, the Secretary-General of ANAD, told a recent gathering that ANAD is not funded by France, many people found it difficult to accept this assertion. It is seen by many as an outfit meant to undermine ECOWAS. But, it has to be conceded that ANAD has a more institutionalised structure than ECOMOG. It is argued that ECOMOG does not have a clear relationship with the ECOWAS Secretariat, neither has there been a civilian on the team to co-ordinate its activities, thus giving political support for its actions.

Also in existence in the region is the wider politics of security outfits played out by various foreign military assistance networks, the most important being the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), the Renforcement des capacités africaines de maintien de la paix (RECAMP) and the British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT). What is worrying about these groups is how they target African countries and the manner in which countries are selected to benefit from their programmes. Warren Christopher started one such initiative in 1997 with beneficiaries including Mali, Senegal and Ghana. The same year, France organised what it called Nangbeto ‘97 with Benin, Togo and Burkina Faso as participants. The project was meant to train the troops of recipient countries in crisis intervention. France also earmarked CFA30 million for the establishment of a peacekeeping training centre in Yamoussoukro.

On a general political plane, the Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Central Bank of West Africa States — BCEAO) and the Communaute Economique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Economic Community of West Africa — CEAO) not only parallel the role of ECOWAS, but in addition, more than fulfil, at least for the Francophone countries of West Africa, the key objectives of ECOWAS. In no small way, this makes ECOWAS unimportant to them. The Franco-Africa summit has already been alluded to that parallels and in some ways undermines the OAU. The Yamoussoukro meeting was very useful to the resolution of the Liberian crisis. The symbolism of Yamoussoukro is that it was held on the territory of Houphouét-Boigny. As one writer asserts:

"The ECOWAS crisis brings into focus the long struggles for the survival of the sub-regional body, the collapse of which portends immense implications for Nigeria. Francophone ECOWAS members have shown very little respect or concern for the organisation. While many of them have defaulted in paying their dues for up to five consecutive years, they strain to meet all obligations to the Communaute Economique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEAO), which is their own version of ECOWAS, and Conseil de l’Entente, a political organisation to which some of them also belong. Burkinabe President, Blaise Campoare is Chairman of both organisations which may be the reason why he appears to be acting as spokesman for the Francophone countries."5

The last point that needs to be underscored here is that, for France, its relations with former colonies are informed by defence and other forms of agreements in the spirit of pacta sunt servanda. Although Nigeria only shares borders with Francophone countries, this in itself is not a source of threat. As Akinterinwa notes:

"The Francophone neighbours of Nigeria do not themselves pose any direct threat to Nigeria as they are generally weaker even if their total resources are put together. They only pose threats indirectly, thanks to the powerful presence of the French in the neighbourhood."6

It should be mentioned that, during the various Bakassi-inspired conflicts with Nigeria, France was always at hand to shore up and reinforce Cameroon’s military capacity. Meanwhile, the quarrel over Bakassi is based on who actually owns the oil-rich border territory. France sees itself as being in competition with Nigeria over the Francophone countries for exports of goods and for cheap raw materials.

Lessons learned or matters arising?

It is clear that, if the UN and OAU had not entered the fray to save Nigeria’s face, there was no way that ECOMOG could have muddled through in Liberia. The first clear lesson to learn here is that there is a need to standardise the parameters used to bring warring parties to accept peaceful settlements of crises. It is clear that, if ECOMOG had not reverted to its original mandate — peacekeeping — the OAU and UN were not likely to support it. Secondly, there is a need for confidence-building measures. These would allay the fears of both the warring parties to the dispute and their allies. Peacekeepers must not base their point of departure on the assumption that rebels are always wrong, or that the state is right because it is the state. There is also a need for the continuous assessment and reassessment of the initial mandate of a mission, at all time taking into account the changing realities on the ground. In the case of ECOMOG, it violated its mandate and everything that was done, was subject to the whims and caprices of the field commander and the Nigerian government.

Two further lessons clearly transpire from this:

All military decisions must be subject to political assessment.



No members of or contributors to a peacekeeping mission should become so powerful that they are able to provide and control virtually all field commanders, as well as the military instructions.

Such power could be suicidal and catastrophic. It undermines the morale and integrity of other nations that contributed troops and also reinforces the claim of hegemonic domination where there are big nations such as Nigeria in West Africa.

Another lesson is that, countries dealing with subregional matters should be flexible and willing to accept mistakes, and ready to adhere to the democratic decisions of the subregional collective. In the case of Nigeria, generals Babangida and Abacha started off with the conviction that they could not have been wrong about their role in ECOMOG. Their views were dogmatic and were carried through in an authoritarian manner. Two further factors that greatly affected the ECOMOG mission were pride and the militarist culture. Leaders personalised the Liberian and Sierra Leonean crises in such a way that it gave the impression that they had personal scores to settle with Taylor, Sankoh, and others. They also saw themselves as military leaders who could not accept defeat from a so-called ‘ragtag’ army of non-professional soldiers led by Taylor, and the like.

The next lesson is that it is crucial to take early warning signals seriously. Everybody saw how Sergeant Doe massacred close to 3 000 people who were perceived as detractors, yet no head of state in the subregion condemned him. Even when it was clear that Taylor’s fighting machine was almost subduing Doe, nobody advised him, among the club of heads of state, to resign. Doe himself only agreed to resign after the NPFL had confined him to the presidential palace for six months, and after having lost everything except the palace itself to the rebels.

It is also necessary to address the issue of domination by Anglophone countries, as perceived by Francophone countries. Above all, the ‘conspiracy thesis’ must be erased among Anglophone countries, which always perceive the Francophone countries as uncritically doing things without really making any independent choice — all in the name of cliquish camaraderie.

A further lesson is that the pan-African orientation of unity and integration in relations among member states must be internalised. In this regard, matters of collective security of the subregion are emphasised. Indeed, the notion of security itself needs reconceptualisation and deconstruction in such way that it address the lives of ordinary people in the subregion. Security is clearly seen from two contrasting perspectives — that of the heads of states, and that of the ordinary people, one more abstract, while the other is very concrete and addresses material livelihood.

MAD and ANAD cannot co-exist. One should give way to the other. Security is such a delicate matter that it should not be subjected to politicking. MAD was not the cause of the crisis in Liberia, but the attitude of member states in response to the invocation of the MAD agreements in the intervention in Liberia, was criticised in such a way that made MAD the scapegoat. As it is, MAD and ANAD do not seem to complement, but rather to antagonise each other. The politics of the Anglophone-Francophone divide clearly play a part in this division. Since MAD is a more all-embracing agreement, it has the potential to unite all, if given the chance. ANAD does not have the same potential.

Furthermore, there is also clearly a need to show interest in post-war reconstruction. What should happen to those who lose their property? What form should reconciliation take? How should destitute people, orphans, victims of rape (who may have contracted HIV in the process) be treated? What will constitute justice for the civilian population who were mere victims of the war?

Finally, the unwillingness to carry along the Francophone countries by force of conviction, through a culture of tolerance, patience, understanding and persuasion, goes far in showing what militarism could do to the psyche of a people under military rule.

Other concerns are also of importance. When the issue of the Anglophone-Francophone divide is addressed by scholars, the impression is given that the same pathologies and antipathies that govern élite and diplomatic relations percolate downwards to the ordinary people in the subregion. This is not true for several reasons. Even before the ECOWAS protocol permitted the free movement of people, many of the informal sector traders never accepted the colonial boundaries as sacrosanct. For many of them, the informal trade sector has existed for centuries and they inherited their professions from their forebears. But, more importantly, the relatives of many people, by consanguinity, are spread over two or more countries cutting across the Anglophone-Francophone divide. They have never allowed this divide to affect them (indeed, to them it is meaningless, both socially and politically). Whenever they meet, they speak their native dialect and not English or French. A typical example is the Egun-speaking people who are balkanised into English-speaking Nigeria and French-speaking Benin. For these people, state policies have not affected, in any fundamental way, their sociological relations. Indeed, the latter form of relationship has more heuristic meaning for them than the former. The same can be said for the Hausa of Nigeria and the Fulani of Niger who are spread across West Africa, from Senegal to Nigeria.

Notes

A Okon, Nigerian foreign policy towards Africa, Journal of Modern African Studies 37(1), 1998, p 82.



R Mortimer, ECOMOG, Liberia and regional security in West Africa, in D Rothchild & EKeller, Africa in the new international order: Rethinking state sovereignty and regional security, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, 1996, p 154.



Centre for Democracy and development, Ghana, 1999, p 22.



See the Nigerian daily newspaper, This Day, 3 August 1997.



Cited in E Bassey, Nigeria and its immediate neighbours: Constraints and prospects of subregional security in the 1990s, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, 1994, pp 43-44.



B Akinterinwa, cited in A Olukushi et al, Structural adjustment in West Africa, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, 1994, p 46.

* Department of Political Science, Lagos State University