ECOWAS and Military Group (ECOMIG): Force to Reckon With in Peace Enforcement and Stabilization Operations in West Africa: A Case of the Gambian 2016–2017 Political Crisis (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
Confronted with political crises, undemocratic governments, civil strife and droughts, African sub-regional organisations have experienced growing challenges in resolving these problems. The Economic Community of West Africa, although it is regarded as the most successful sub- regional grouping has also been confronted by new emerging threats to security as the West African group has been a haven of terrorist linked groups. It is in face of these challenges that this research evaluates the effectiveness of ECOWAS in resolving intra- state conflicts in West Africa with specific focus on Mali. The study sought to establish whether ECOWAS has successfully addressed the problem in Mali which began in January 2012. The study also had the objective of examining the institutional frameworks available in ECOWAS that governs its response to crisis in the region. The other objective was to explore measures which have been put in place by ECOWAS in resolving the Malian crisis. The study adopte...
ECOWAS, Peace and Conflict Management in West Africa
The Economic Community of West African States was formed in the twentieth century to promote multidimensional cooperation that will bring peace and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ironically, while the Community tries to attain the day to day goals of the organization; the recurrent cases of civil wars, internal conflicts and terrorism continually abort the peace that is needed to enthrone sustainable regional development. This paper is a study on the challenges to regional peace in West Africa. It traced the origins as well as the organs of the Community and shows how ECOWAS has successfully managed a number of conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Cote d' Ivoire, while highlighting the policies and programs adopted to manage conflict and promote sustainable development. Finally, it called for multi-track approach in the war against terrorism, revolution, multi-dimensional conflicts and political crisis that have bedevilled the West African region.
The purpose of this paper is to assess and evaluate the ECOWAS peacekeeping efforts in West Africa, specifically its successes and failures in Liberia, Sierrra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea and Guinea Bissau, using a simplified version of the evaluative framework created by Diehl and Druckman, to accommodate for the type of data that is available for these operations. The paper demonstrates that ECOWAS failed to restore peace and security in all its peacekeeping operations and that there is a lot that the sub-regional organization has to learn to deal effectively with its own conflicts. Nigeria provided most of the financial support and troops for the operations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire, but decided to play a more limited role in the ECOWAS interventions in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau after being severely criticized for its hegemonic role by several ECOWAS members. ECOWAS might be able to play an important role in preserving the security of the region, but only after learning from its mistakes in past operations.
West Africa: From Peacekeeping to Peace Enforcement. ECOWAS and the Regulations of Regional Security
Conflict Studies Quarterly
The ECOWAS principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states included in its Charter was in line with the sovereignty of states in the international system. This principle, ECOWAS, has to some extent been kept, but the growing insecurity arising from internal con licts in West Africa states motivated the adoption of ECOMOG as a mechanism for peace and security. The ECOMOG, in the effort to securitize the region to enable economic integration and development as major goals of ECOWAS, has engaged in several peacekeeping operations. However, the nature of the con lict from these states rendered peacekeeping operations inadequate, leading to the adoption of peace enforcement as a new mechanism for mitigating intractable con licts in West Africa. It is in this context that this article investigates the role of ECOWAS in peacekeeping operations and its transformation to peace enforcement in the West African security complexes.
A synopsis of the December, 2016-January, 2017 political impasse in the Gambia is made in this piece as a prelude to its impact assessment and general overview on the political economy of the country. Given the occurrence and the role played by the sub-regional body called ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States) in settling the impasse from outside, the piece pays attention to the reasons underscoring these ECOWAS diplomatic and military moves and the politics behind the action. The piece unveils the arguments generated from quarters, especially the intellectual and expert circles on the international legal justification (s) for ECOWAS military wing' involvement and the manner such action was dispensed to help the new government claim its mandate and make the out gone government abdicate peacefully.A literature review of the relevant texts and available legal instruments from existing international institutions like the United Nations, the African Union among others is undertaken for empirical-verifiable justifications that are value-free. This is complimented by a historical-descriptive analysis narrative that details the accounts of events, using intellectual lenses for investigative conclusions. The research offers useful recommendations that provide both the government of the Gambia and ECOWAS as the sub-regional institution or regime necessary answers to permanent peace and development in the Gambia and the region at large, alluding to the fact that the peace attained in the country and its ECOWAS sub-region is a concomitant reflection of the world peace and relative security that the UN stands for.
For decades, countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau were crippled by conflicts and civil strife in which violence and killings were prevalent. While violent conflicts are declining in the sub-region, recent, low intensity conflicts surging within notably stable countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal sends alarming signals of the possible resurgence of internal and regional violent conflicts. These conflicts are often linked to such factors as colonial legacies, poverty, violations of human right, bad governance, ethnic marginalization among others. ECOWAS as the regional institution established with the main objective of economic integration have been making efforts to develop a viable structure for deterring, mitigating and preventing a resurgence of violence in the sub-region. This paper therefor, posits that, ending violent conflicts and civil strife in the sub-region, requires the collaborative and collective efforts of the civil society, regional governments as well as the international community in identifying and understanding the causal causes of conflicts and also, developing concrete policy and programmes to prevent, manage and completely resolve these conflicts.
Ecowas and the management of the post-2016 presidential electoral conflict in Gambia
Kampala International University Interdisciplinary Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
This study explores the role of ECOWA in the management of the post-2016 presidential electoral conflict in Gambia. The 2016 election was surprisingly won by the leader of an opposition coalition; Adama Barrow. Barrow defeated Yayha Jammeh, who had already won consecutively four previous presidential elections. This marked the terminal point of Jammeh’s 20-years rule of Gambia, marred with human rights abuses. Jammeh initially conceded defeat but later changed his mind after a week, thus triggering a major political conflict. For months, he made incessant desperate attempts to cling to power, before finally leaving the country on 21 January 2017, when it appeared he would be removed by force. Indeed, different stakeholders including the ECOWAS played a vital role for ensuring peace in Gambia. In this connection, this study discusses exclusively the roles of ECOWAS in mitigating the conflict under consideration. With extant literature and oral sources backed with the realist conflict...
This study sought to appraise two Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocols; the Protocol on Conflict Prevention (1999) and the Democracy and Good Governance Protocol (2001), and how they address the political security challenge in Gambian. In resolving the Gambian crisis, ECOWAS adopted some of its already established protocols such as the ECOWAS Mechanism on Conflict Management, Resolution, Security, and Peacekeeping and the ECOWAS Protocol on Good Governance and Democracy. The study relied on the documentary method. So, data were collected from secondary sources by reviewing various newspapers, journals, textbooks, and online sources. The findings of the study reveal that ECOWAS was very successful in its Conflict Resolution Mechanisms in West Africa especially the use of the Protocol on Conflict Prevention (1999) and the Democracy and Good Governance Protocol (2001) as these helped to address the Political Security challenge in the Gambia. Consequently, this study concludes and recommends that other sub-regional bodies should emulate ECOWAS in adopting their conflict resolution mechanisms within their sub-region. Finally, the paper recommends that ECOWAS should ensure that democratic governance through free, fair, and credible elections, the rule of law, and respect for human rights are fully respected and implemented in her sub-region.
The ECOWAS parliament as a tool for conflict prevention in West Africa
2015
This thesis seeks to examine the effectiveness of the ECOWAS Parliament in conflict prevention in West Africa. From a holistic perspective, it also discusses the emergence of regional parliaments and specifically analyses their contribution to conflict prevention. This thesis is the first to assess how the ECOWAS Parliament attempts to prevent conflict in West Africa and how effective this has been. It presents the argument that, bodies such as the ECOWAS-P which are mandated as the legislative organs in a region otherwise noted for protracted conflicts play a crucial role in preventing conflict. The study employed participant observation (specifically in the ECOWAS-P), case study methods, elite interviews, parliamentary and archival research. The thesis greatest contribution lie in undertaking an institutionalist approach to conflict prevention and drawing from public administration developed and applied a performance management tool to help assess how the ECOWAs-P has succeeded at...
How ECOWAS & AU Managed West African conflicts 2011-2017: Côte d'Ivoire; Mali; Guinea-Bissau; Burkina Faso; Gambia , 2019
Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the "Africa in Focus" (AIF) Show programme (2014-2016), Head of Research and Communications Unit of AIF decided to commission a series of publications that help to continue demystifying, unpacking, and explaining Africa's continental integration. The first of the publications, this Paper seeks to help readers appreciate the complexities inherent in conflict prevention, resolution and management of regional conflicts by the regional and continental counterparts. The focus is on ECOWAS and AU responses on selected conflicts between 2011 and 2017