|
Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau. Adekeye
Adebajo. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 2002. 192 pp.
In this occasional paper for
the International Peace Academy, Adekeye Adebajo takes a look at the role of the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the attempts to build peace in
the internal conflicts of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau. His aim is
to come to an evaluation of the military interventions in the said three
cases and the ECOWAS security system in general. Adebajo,
who is the director of the Africa program at the
IPA and a renowned specialist in West African politics, personally
interviewed some of the key figures in the events detailed in the book and
even managed to get access to some hitherto unpublished government documents
from various nations.
He starts his analysis with
a chapter on the political development of West Africa since
independence. According to his view the events in this region can only be
understood with regard to the development of the relations between the
francophone bloc of nations (Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal, Guinea), their former
metropolis France, and Nigeria, the regional
economic and military powerhouse. The conflict or convergence of interests of
these key players shaped the political landscape of West Africa and influenced
the way ECOWAS was formed and subsequently acted. Far from fulfilling the
hopes of West Africans, Adebajo concludes, the
political leaders of the region failed to create strong democracies and
vibrant economies. These failures took on tragic proportions in the cases of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea
Bissau.
The first case study of the
present book deals with the civil war that ravaged Liberia from 1990 to
1997 and has recently flared up again. Adebajo
gives a concise overview of the course of the war and its major events before
analysing in more detail why no fewer than twelve consecutive peace
agreements failed. He explains that peace in the end could only be achieved
for three reasons: (a) Charles Taylor, the leading warlord of Liberia, had
been weakened by his enemies, which made him more amenable to peace overtures,
(b) Taylor and the Nigerian president Obasanjo
achieved a rapprochement that made a negotiated solution of the conflict
possible, and (c) ECOWAS gave up its efforts to strengthen the role of civil
society in post-war Liberia and caved in to the demands of the
warlords. Adebajo concludes this chapter with
a glum outlook for the future of Liberia. The fighting
between the new rebel organisation LURD and Taylor’s
government forces leaves the country devastated and drives thousands of
Liberians from their homes. According to Adebajo, Taylor’s failure to perform the change from warlord to
statesman is the main reason for this new escalation.
In the second case study, Adebajo analyzes the conflict in Sierra Leone. He sees the
roots of this conflict in the misrule of Siaka
Stevens and Joseph Momoh which created an
atmosphere of unrest and upheaval. In March 1991 Foday
Sankoh, with the help of Liberian warlord Charles
Taylor, launched an insurrection that sparked a decade-long war. As was the
case in Liberia ECOWAS tried to pacify the situation by sending a
peacekeeping force. Understaffed and poorly equipped, the ECOMOG (ECOWAS
Cease Fire Monitoring Group) forces attempted to restore law and order in Sierra Leone. Only in 1999
when Nigeria, the main
contributor to ECOMOG, threatened to withdraw its forces completely, did the
UN react. The UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was created and political
pressure on Taylor and other
parties to the conflict intensified. Eventually a peace deal was struck that again favoured warlords over civil society. Adebajo comes to the conclusion that the ECOMOG forces
were hampered by internal dissent in ECOWAS. Their effectiveness was further
reduced by a shortage of military material and funding.
The civil war that raged in
Guinea-Bissau between 1998
and 1999 is the third case study of the book. Since this conflict is little
known outside the region, Adebajo relates in some
detail the background of this war and the flow of events. He explains that
the trigger for this civil war can be found in the personal conflict between
President Vieira and General Mane. When Vieira tried to push Mane out of
office, the General used his command over the armed forces to instigate a
coup against the President. Senegal and Guinea intervened
ostensibly to keep the peace, but also with their own political agendas in
mind. ECOWAS members later declared their approval of the intervention, but
hesitated to give the mission financial or logistical support. The UN once
more showed little interest in West Africa and reacted
with forming the UN Peacebuilding Support Office
for Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) that with only eighteen employees was decidedly
understaffed. Although a successful attack of Mane’s
forces ended the civil war and led to new elections, Adebajo
gives a bleak prospect for Guinea-Bissau’s future.
The new President Yala has inherited an
economically and structurally weak country that is ridden with internal
strife. External help is hardly to be expected. Furthermore, Yala has embarked on a dangerous course of awarding high
offices only to his ethnic group.
In the last part of the
book Adebajo tries to draw some lessons from the
past interventions of ECOWAS. He evaluates the reform of the ECOWAS security
mechanism and discusses the idea of a West African rapid reaction force. His
main doubt concerning the effectiveness of such a force deals with the
notorious shortage of money and supplies. Nonetheless, Adebajo
sees the attempts of the ECOWAS to install a security mechanism in its own subregion as an important step in the development of West
African nations. The moves to integrate West African economies and to create
stabilizing security institutions might lead to more healthy economies and
more vibrant democracies.
Adebajo’s book is a
detailed and interesting study of the interventions of ECOWAS into the civil
wars in its subregion. The author very skilfully
combines a narrative of major events with an in-depth analysis of problems,
causes and possible solutions. Building Peace in West Africa is a
highly recommendable read for all students of African politics.
Dieter Janssen
Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway
|
