OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE.

OSUN

STATE, NIGERIA.

FACULTY OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

COURSE CODE: HIS306

COURSE TITLE: WEST AFRICA IN THE 20TH CENTURY

COURSE COORDINATOR: DR. MESHACH OFUAFOR

GROUP NUMBER: 12

QUESTION: ECOMOG INTERVENTIONS UNDERLINE AN

ACTIVE UN ROLE IN SUB-REGIONAL PEACEKEEPING

EFFORTS. DISCUSS.
GROUP MEMBERS
Oketola Erioluwa Oluwafisayo His/2017/099
Ogunsakin Ojo Abidemi His/2017/195
Akinremi Kehinde Usman His/2017/165
Ayeni Oluwaseun Maryam His/2017/051
Ayodele Joseph Oluwaferanmi His/2017/055
Abolade Adebayo James His/2017/003
Nnamchi Gift Oluchukwu His/2017/091
Arerosu oghenefego Omujale His/2017/114
Olaitan-Omole Joshua Oluwalana Egl/2015/413
Ugbemiekon Precious Sahara His/2017/134
Egbekun-Ife Uyabaretei Daubotei His/2017/072
Oseni Lydia Oreoluwa His/2017/182
Fyanjuola Kehinde. T His/2017/078
Agbaje Oluwanifemi Alice Egl/2017/059
Oteri Christabel Rukevwe Egl/2014/463
Omitade Opeyemi Emmanuel His/2017/180
Edebeatu Tobechukwu His/2017/070
ABSTRACT
This study examines the importance of an active United Nations’ role in sub-regional
peacekeeping efforts with especial focus on ECOMOG interventions in West Africa at the
demise of the Cold War. The objectives of this discourse are (1) to establish the importance
of UN peacekeeping operation (PKO) to the maintenance of international peace and (2) to
discuss how ECOMOG interventions underline the importance of an active UN role in sub-
regional peacekeeping. We draw our positions from and situate our arguments within the
premise of existing literatures which have contextualised the establishment of ECOMOG and
the consequent interventions in the West African sub-region, upon the absence of any
external initiative to solve African problems of instability which became more pronounced at
the end of the Cold War. Without much deviation from much of the positions maintained by
authors of the texts we consulted, we strongly oppose to the views that presented ECOMOG
as perhaps the most constructive instrument created by ECOWAS to solve the problems of
instability in the sub-region. And this is on ground that the creation of the former was not in
tandem with the established norms of the latter as prescribed by the 1975 ECOWAS Treaty.

INTRODUCTION
The end of the Cold War witnessed a great upsurge in armed conflicts in West Africa. These

crises, devoid of the Cold War’s ideologies, were instigated by ethnic, religious and political
factors. More importantly, as regards our purpose, these political instabilities induced a shift

from the more traditional approach to conflict resolution in West Africa to a more radical one

which elicited the use of force. This development bordered on two major considerations. The

first being the extensively devastating consequences of these crises, as witnessed in Liberia,

Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Cote d’Ivoire, which could be measured in terms of human

right abuses, property destruction, carnages and the threat they posed to the sub-region’s

stability. And the second being the inertia of the international community to intervene in

these crises in a bid to bring about a lasting peace in the affected countries.

The establishment of The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group

(ECOMOG) marked a new phase in the historical trajectory of the Economic Community of

West Africa States (ECOWAS) as an economic union and West Africa as a sub-region. At

the outset of the creation of ECOWAS, the details of the treaty which established the

organization were devoid of any military arrangement. The union was envisaged mainly to

promote cooperation and development in all fields of economic activity, particularly in the

sphere of industry, transport, telecommunication, energy, agriculture, natural resources and

commerce. This was not unconnected with the realities of many West African states in the

post-independence era. Generally, these states found themselves predominantly as producers

of raw materials and thus played a subservient role within the context of international trade.

Coupled with this is the fact that, they possessed little or no control over the prices of their

commodities. From this rose the need for the creation of a sub-regional economic

organization under which their interests could be better served and their aspirations canalized.

Hence, their visions within this institution were totally economic by nature.

However, that this purely economic arrangement expanded its ambit to cover security

matters was consequential upon the unfavorable political and security crises which

manifested in a number of West African states and the failure of the international community
—as represented by the United Nations—to intervene in those situations. And in this

transformation lies the crux of our discourse.

Thus, this paper discusses the assertion which states that, ECOMOG interventions

underline the importance of an active UN role in sub-regional peacekeeping effort. To this

end two questions, to which two corresponding answers would be subsequently provided, are

raised. First, of what importance is the UN peacekeeping operations to international peace?

Second, how did ECOMOG interventions underscore an active UN role in sub-regional

peacekeeping effort?

Against this background, we argue that UN peacekeeping mission, its shortcomings

notwithstanding, is a force for good and it has proven highly important for charting a peaceful

course for a great fraction of states where it had intervened; and that ECOMOG interventions

underscore an active UN role in sub-regional peacekeeping effort for reason that, ECOWAS,

by its composition and essence, was not best positioned to carry out a peacekeeping mission

because, as mentioned earlier, it was purely an economic union. Hence, that such union

extended its sphere to cover military interventions even when its resolution never made

provisions for them; and that this move was consequent upon the inactiveness or absence of

the UN peacekeeping operations in West Africa, are great pointers to the fact the significance

of an active UN peacekeeping role cannot be overemphasized within a sub-regional

In order to elucidate on and substantiate our arguments, we divide this paper into four

sections. The first section gives a concise note on UN interventions in a bid to establish its

importance to international peace in tandem with our first argument. The second part

discusses the evolution of ECOMOG and its interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone with

the goal of creating a background to this study. The next section spotlights the main crux of

this paper which is the discourse on how ECOMOG interventions underline an active UN
intervention in sub-regional peacekeeping efforts. And the last part of this work covers our

assessment about the topic of discourse and also entails a question we raise at the end of our

discussion, which may generate further research on the subject at hand, though in a different

manner.

UN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE

Since 1948 when the United Nations (UN) first deployed its peacekeeping force to cushion

the effect of crises and observe ceasefires in Kashmir and Palestine, this arm of the UN has

undertaken over 70 peacekeeping operations, a great number of which are considered

successful. Although some of these were fraught by challenges which could make us consider

them as failure (as in the case of Somalia 1992-1995), the significance of the UN

peacekeeping operations cannot be relegated with respect to containing crises and

maintaining peace.

In considering the importance of UN peacekeeping operation to international peace, it is

apposite to contextualize its significance within its role as a body to which impartiality had

been ascribed. States, as governed by the principle of sovereignty, are often reluctant to

intervene in other states’ internal affairs regardless of the situation—whether in peace or in

war. This is because such act may translate to the violation of a state territorial integrity if so

interpreted and it may aggravate the situation rather than ameliorate it. Hence, the

responsibility of intervening in cases of war between states and crises within states devolves

on the UN peacekeeping arm. This is chiefly due to the fact that it portrays a picture of being

a neutral body which draws its forces from different nations across the world. Hence its

activities were not suspicious to state in which they intervened, as the consent of such state

must be given before its operation can take place; neither did they attract unfavorable reaction

from other states in the international system, as they were only considered a force for good
rather than one which exists to serve another state’s interest. From this end, it is reasonable to

argue that in the absence of the UN peacekeeping arm, cessation of war and crisis in a

number of cases to which they arose would have proven highly difficult. This difficulty may

hinge on other states’ reluctance towards intervention and this would mean that war or crisis

could only end when a victor emerged or when the parties involved decided to call a truce.

And the fact this seldom happens in the absence of an arbitrator means that war would drag

on for long and peace might prove so elusive.

Therefore, that the UN peacekeeping mission stands as the third force with peaceful aims of

seeing to the cessation of war and making attempts towards creating a lasting peace,

underscores its importance with regards to the maintenance of international peace, in spite of

the various challenges it faced. For this reason, it is a force for good.

Even if we are unable to establish a yardstick by which to ascertain the importance of the UN

peacekeeping mission to international peace in all its various engagements over the years

(because its successes and failures are a subject of an inconclusive debate), we may, at least,

evince its significance in other cases of conflict where the UN peacekeepers never intervened.

In this context, states within such affected region were often caught up in between a dilemma

of either intervening or proffering a solution which might be in terms of mediation or

conciliation in a bid to arrive at a defining end and bring about the cessation of war so that

negotiation could take place between the parties involved. This was exactly the case of the

West African sub-region at the end of the Cold War. And even when all possible traditional

methods to peace were inapplicable, a number of West African States under the aegis of

ECOWAS resorted to the use of force to induce the much-needed peace in the region. This is

a clear pointer to the significance of an active UN role in maintaining international peace

through its peacekeeping operation, specifically in a sub-region.

SIERRA LEONE

The bloody civil war in Liberia prompted the Economic Community of West Africa States

(ECOWAS) to set up The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group

(ECOMOG) in 1990. A non-standing military force, ECOMOG was made up of soldiers

from the national armies of member nations. It was a formal arrangement for separate armies

to work together. In practice, the regional giant, Nigeria, contributed most of the troops,

material and financial backing. It also had sub-battalion strength units contributed by other

ECOWAS members –Guinea, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger,

and others.

Nigeria and other ECOWAS members agreed a Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance, in

Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 29 May 1981. Among other organs such as defence committee

and council, it provided for the establishment of an Allied Armed Force of the Community

(AAFC) as needed. Under this arrangement each member state was required to designate and

set aside a unit of its armed forces for emergency situations, and to be placed under the

service of the community. The function of the AAFC was for peacekeeping and intervention.

Although the protocol was invoked during the Liberian crisis the AAFC never materialized,

rather Anglophone ECOWAS members set-up ECOMOG in 1990 to intervene in the civil

war in Liberia (1989-1996).

The establishment of ECOMOG was essentially sequel to the request to the request of

President Samuel Doe for ECOWAS intervention. ECOWAS could not accede to this request

through the AAFC because of the deep division between francophone countries, who were in

support of Charles Taylor, the rebel leader and the Anglophone countries who were in

support of Samuel Doe. To get over this hurdle, ECOMOG was established under the
auspices of the ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee established in 1989 and was

dominated by Anglophone countries (Nigeria, Ghana, and Gambia). The standing Mediation

Committee met in Banjul, the Gambia and agreed to send a military force, named ECOMOG

to Liberia.

ECOMOG soldiers finally left Liberia in 1998, and won recognition for helping to re-

establish stability. But there was no respite as neighbouring Sierra Leone slid into a bloody

civil war.

Similarly, the Sierra Leone war started as an NPFL–backed RUF insurgency against the inept

and corrupt administration of President Joseph Momoh in 1991. Some accounts state that the

RUF leader Foday Sankoh and some of his supporters had received training from Libya and

had support from Burkina Faso. It was believed that Charles Taylor sought to punish Sierra

Leone's President Momoh for supporting ECOMOG. In the midst of the crisis, Momoh's

government was toppled in a military coup led by an ex-ECOMOG Sierra Leone army officer

in 1992. ECOWAS's initial reaction was to expand the mandate of ECOMOG to include

Sierra Leone. A contingent of Nigerian troops was sent to Freetown.

In Liberia, the United States, after initial indifference, provided some logistical assistance

toward the end of the ECOMOG Mission. In the case of Sierra Leone, the British (former

colonial masters) mobilized diplomatic support for UN intervention in the country and also

sent in paratroopers in 2000 when the UN peacekeepers were threatened by rebels. While the

United Kingdom intervened briefly, the United States largely refrained from playing a direct

military role in the conflict.

Before proceeding to the next section, it is important that clarifications be made with respect

to the evolution of ECOMOG and the consequent interventions. It must be noted that the

establishment of a peacekeeping force, as alluded above, was completely against the Treaty
of ECOWAS. By composition and capacity, the bodies or organizations which were best in

place to carry out peacekeeping missions were the African Union and the United Nations.

However, the financial condition of the former had paralyzed its position. Similarly, the

inertia on the part of the latter made intervention impossible despite a gross report of human

right abuse in those crises. It was on these bases that the creation of ECOMOG became

highly reasonable. It became reasonable because in the absence of any external initiative

towards peacekeeping in the sub-region and in the consideration of the danger these crises

constituted to the stability of West Africa, internal initiative was necessary. More still, a

pressing issue for major states in the sub-region was the problems of the refugees fleeing

from the affected state to neighbouring states and the entrapment of other states’ nationals,

especially in Liberia. For instance, the Nigerian area is said to have witnessed a surge in the

number of refugees from Liberia at the outset of the crisis in the latter. This, in our opinion,

accounts more for the former proactive approach towards stopping the tide of crisis in

Liberia, beyond the friendship ties that was said to be between the head of states of both

countries.

ECOMOG INTERVENTIONS; AN EMPHASY OF AN ACTIVE UN

ROLE IN SUB-REGIONAL PEACEKEEPING EFFORT

By its nature and consequences, the conflict in Liberia, as much as in other cases in the sub-

region, fell within the continuum of all other conflicts to which the intervention of the

international community was necessary. Considerably, this intra-state crisis led to a great

human right abuse. It is estimated that out of the pre-war population of about 2.5 million

people, over 200,000 were killed while about 1.2 million displaced. In this context, the UN

was in the best position to undertake a peacekeeping operation. However, the organization
was less responsive towards this cause. Also, the United States, whose interest in Liberia

cannot be completely obscured, was reluctant to directly intervene in the crisis. Given the

state of the situation and the apathy of the international community, it dawned on the West

African states that internal solution was needed to solve the then extant problem of instability

in the sub-region. Hence the creation of ECOMOG as a sub-regional peacekeeping body.

And as adumbrated above, it is on this situation that we premise our argument that ECOMOG

interventions underline the importance of an active UN role in sub-regional peacekeeping

effort.

In the first instance, ECOMOG interventions underline the importance of an active UN role

in sub regional peacekeeping effort because they were consequent on the absence of the UN

peacekeeping operations in West African during those intra-state crises which engulfed the

sub-region. It should be emphasized that, had the UN intervened, ECOWAS would not have

had its own force. Instead, states within the subregion would have contributed forces towards

the peacekeeping cause. However, that ECOMOG was given a life of its own was based on

the realization that the peacekeeping responsibility the UN PKO had been undertaking cannot

be left unattended without a replication of such setting in the subregion to induce the

cessation of conflict. This realization is a great pointer to the importance of an active UN role

in sub-regional peacekeeping efforts and can be based on the situations which appeared to be

the fallouts of instability in the sub-region.

Beyond the issues of the refugees’ spill over effect, the entrapment of other states’ nationals

and the threats all these constituted to the regional stability, the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra

Leone were not amenable to the traditional method of conflict resolution in West Africa. And

given the sharp division between the Francophone and Anglophone countries, it was highly

impossible for a powerful state within the sub-region, like Nigeria or Cote d’Ivoire, to take a

unilateral action in the complete absence of any prospect of intervention by the international
community. ECOWAS, being the only organization on which they have control, was then

used to canalize the ambition of most states in the sub-region to bring about the cessation of

war. It should, however, be noted that not all states subscribed to the idea of military

intervention as projected by ECOWAS. The schism was mainly between the Francophone

and Anglophone countries with the former opposing military interventions while the latter

supported them. Nevertheless, a military arrangement was made by a number of West

African states for interventions with peacekeeping aim under the flagship of ECOWAS. A

development we considered an aberration of the established norms of the organization.

We considered the move an aberration because the creation of ECOMOG was opposed to the

rules and objectives of ECOWAS as established by the 1975 Treaty which was ratified by the

majority of West African states. This is because the Treaty made no provision for the creation

of a military arrangement for peacekeeping operation. Although it is commonplace for

scholars to make reference to the Protocol of Non-Aggression, an agreement adopted by

ECOWAS member states, as a precursor of the creation of ECOMOG. It should be

emphasized that this does not, by all standard, amount to that fact. The establishment of a

peacekeeping force was unforeseeable as evident in the activities of ECOWAS prior to the

implosion of Liberia. The formation of what we outlined above as a semblance of a force for

intervention (AFFC) was unlike that of ECOMOG.

Hence, that a peacekeeping force was therefore created where it was never envisaged due to

the urgency of the need for such force in West Africa is an indicator which underscores the

significance of an active UN role in sub regional peacekeeping effort

On the flip side, ECOMOG interventions also underline the importance of an active UN role

in sub-regional peacekeeping effort because they were responses to the stance of the

international community on African instability and the calls for the need for regional
organizations to lessen the burden of the Security Council in proffering solution to regional

problems. It has been argued that powerful states of the world were less interested in African

instability problems. Given the financial and material responsibilities attached, there was

little or no motivation for such endeavours. As Richard clearly puts it, ‘the UN and non-

African members of the international community [were] allegedly suffering from African

peacekeeping fatigue.’ And to a great extent, this fatigue affected the role of the United

Nations peacekeeping effort in West Africa so much so that the UN did not address both the

crisis in Liberia and ECOMOG intervention in political terms until 1992, when ECOMOG’s

action was approved under Resolution VII of the UN Charter. Thus, that ECOMOG

interventions were responses to the international community’s fatigue, which in turn affected

the UN PKO in West Africa is a factor which underlined the importance of an active UN role

in sub-regional peacekeeping efforts.

CONCLUSION

In sum, it is beyond doubt that ECOMOG interventions underline an active UN role

in sub-regional peacekeeping effort. For reason that what appeared in the absence of UN

PKO was a great lacuna that a number of countries in the sub-region sought to fill. And the

fact this absence elicited some moves which were against the ECOWAS Treaty speaks

volume on the importance of the UN peacekeeping operations. However, against the fact that

we considered the formation of ECOMOG as an aberration of the existing norms of

ECOWAS, there exists another position which sees the establishment of ECOMOG as a

progressive step of creating African solutions to African problems. This other argument has

been based on the justification that, regional stability, unity, mutual trust and good

neighbourliness were necessary for achieving the ultimate goal of ECOWAS. Be that as it

may, the fact remains that military interventions were a great deviation from the purpose for

which ECOWAS was created. And since we consider this as such in our assessment of the
topic of discourse, a question which therefore emerged is that without the adoption of force,

would ECOWAS have been able to contain the situation in the sub-region within the

framework or structure afforded them by the Treaty which establish the organization?

REFERENCES

 United Nations, Peacekeeping; Our History. Peacekeeping.un.org/en/our-history

 Lianyang, Christopher. The role of regional organizations in regional peace and

 Richard, Amponsem-Boateng, “Prospects of the economic community of West

 Adebajo, Adekeye. Liberia’s civil war : Nigeria , ECOMOG , and Regional security
in West Africa , Lynner Reinner / international peace Academy 2002

 Berman, Eric G.; Sams, Katie E. Peacekeeping In Africa : Capabilities And