SUMMARY
In way of summary, nine months after the Liberian crises began, the relatively powerless and largely untested sub-regional organization – ECOWAS – took on the Liberian challenge. At the time, Salim Ahmed Salim, the Secretary-General of the Organization for African Unity (OAU) justified ECOWAS’ intervention: “Africans are one people. It is hence unacceptable that a part of that people should stand in silence and in seeming helplessness when another part is suffering.”
Liberian conflict directly affected ECOWAS’ member states in two major ways. First, citizens from several member-states were in Liberia at the outbreak of the conflict. Some were killed while others were taken hostage (mainly by Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia [NPFL]). Second, member-states were concerned that the Liberian civil war would have a domino effect in the region. This fear was based on the fact that the preponderant majority of ECOWAS member-states were governed by repressive and weak regimes. The movement of peoples fleeing the conflict across borders combined with the constantly shifting military alliances could prove too much for these unstable and largely authoritarian regimes.
As a result of these calculations, combining self-interest and a desire for regional stability, ECOWAS devised a peace plan designed to bring the bloody conflict in Liberia to an end. Working under Nigerian direction and funding, ECOWAS was able to produce by May 1990 a comprehensive peace plan focusing on the following objectives:
1. A call for an immediate cease-fire between the warring factions;
2. The establishment and deployment of an ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) to monitor the observance of the cease-fire by all sides to the conflict;
3. The establishment of an interim government that would exclude Doe and Taylor;
4. The holding of free and fair elections within a year, under international supervision and observation17.
At the same ECOWAS summit held in Banjul, The Gambia, a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC) was established, consisting of Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Togo. It was the Committee’s responsibility to oversee the implementation of the peace plan. The plan had the support of both the OAU and the UN, but was rejected by Taylor. For their part, the two leading Francophone countries in the region, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, also rejected the plan.
These oppositions notwithstanding, ECOMOG was established on 7 August 1990. ECOMOG was to be composed of military contingents drawn from the member-states of the SMC as well as from Guinea and Sierra Leone. Due to the organization’s lack of experience in the diplomacy of multilateral security, ECOMOG was given a mandate that was difficult if not impossible to execute.
In reality, the ECOMOG mission was much more ambitious, ultimately relying on a wide range of both peaceful and forceful instruments designed to stem the violence and to bring the belligerents to the table. For instance, ECOMOG forces were expected to neutralize the warring factions, through forcible disarmament if necessary. At the same time, ECOWAS envoys were dispatched to Liberia to conduct mediation and conciliation with the leaders of the warring factions.
An important lesson is that regional political rivalries should be recognized as a serious influence, if not constraint, on peacekeeping effectiveness. Today’s intrastate conflicts are seen too much as internal problems. Instead, they need to better placed in a regional context, not only with respect to regional rivalries, but also how refugee flows affect conflict dynamics and how arms flows and local support for insurgencies undermine efforts at establishing a stable environment in which peace can be nurtured.
Finally, there may be ways of counter-balancing these constraints. For example, while it is realistic in today’s world to argue that sub-regional organizations should manage crises in their backyard, it is also realistic to expect that there be global support for such initiatives.
With its years of peacekeeping experience in logistics and training, the UN and its member-states could be expected to do more in supporting regional efforts. UN support will not only have the effect of neutralizing the perception that ‘regional hegemons’ are at the forefront of local peace initiatives, but it could also do much to enhance the global organization’s peacekeeping capabilities, influence and reputation.
