By intervening in the Malian crisis, ECOWAS shows that it is increasingly political. Since the 1990s, the organization has extended its prerogatives.
This Sunday, the members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) gathered gathered at the summit to suspend Mali's membership until February 2022, deadline for the organization of elections. Since the August 2020 coup, CEDEO has been involved in negotiations with the Malian military junta. While initially created to promote the economic integration of its members, ECOWAS increasingly has a diplomatic role. In Mali, but also in Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Burkina Faso, the international body has set itself the task of resolving conflicts and political crises in the West African sub-region.
It must be said that beyond the economy, ECOWAS has acquired diplomatic tools: in 1999, the Economic Community of West African States adopted a "Protocol relating to the of Prevention, Management, Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security ”. This is, indicates ECOWAS, "intended to ensure collective security and peace". To this instrument is added the “Additional Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance” which was adopted in December 2001 and which should allow the institution to “positively influence political and security developments” in member states. .
Some failures ...
ECOWAS, whose primary mission was to set up a strong West African economic and monetary union, is therefore appointing more and more special representatives and mediators in its member states, during conflicts, coups or even simply in presidential elections. In recent years, she has not shied away from making public statements on human rights violations committed by the armed forces in several countries.
In 2015, in Burkina Faso, an attempted coup plunged the country into a serious political crisis. Four days after the coup, ECOWAS proposed an agreement to end the crisis, which resulted in the return of interim president Michel Kafando. An agreement which also provides, for the elections, the authorization for the supporters of ousted President Blaise Compaoré to participate, when they had been excluded by the National Assembly, as well as the amnesty for the putschists. The document proposed by ECOWAS caused an uproar among the opposition who wondered how such an agreement could have been proposed.
Failures, ECOWAS has known… In Mali, in 2020, several emissaries will go to the site in turn. The Economic Community of West African States are proposing a plan to end the crisis to the Malian protest movement, the M5-RFP. As in Burkina Faso a few years earlier, ECOWAS indeed attempted to bring Keïta back to power. But "the solutions proposed by the ECOWAS mission absolutely do not correspond to the aspirations and expectations expressed by the M5-RFP and carried by the overwhelming majority of the Malian people", retorts the opposition movement. The ECOWAS roadmap will never be adopted and the mission led by former President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan will have no effect.
... and successes
But all is not to be thrown in the trash, in the diplomatic actions of ECOWAS. In Guinea, while a coup d'état took place in December 2008, ECOWAS came into play. The institution then became "the motor of the political action of the international community in Guinea", writes Dr. Gilles Olakounlé. Yabi, of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in a report on the role of ECOWAS in the management of political crises and conflicts. During the crisis of January and February 2007, the Economic Community of West African States had already offered mediation. At the time of the coup d'état of December 2008, ECOWAS sent a mission. "This physical presence of ECOWAS in the aftermath of the coup d'etat signified from the outset to the CNDD junta that its actions would be monitored by the community", continues Gilles Olakounlé Yabi, who explains that, if the African Union had an important role, "ECOWAS was at the forefront and carried out an always remarkable preparatory work".
In Guinea-Bissau, ECOWAS also played a key role: while the civil war of 1997-1998 opposed several parties, including the armed forces of Senegal and Guinea, alongside forces loyal to President Vieira, ECOWAS negotiated the Abuja agreement, which should allow the end of hostilities and lead to the deployment of the first ECOMOG contingents, better known as the "White Helmets".
Why this turnaround?
Under the pressure of political and security events, ECOWAS has become a diplomatic body. Because without peace, economic development seems impossible. It all dates back to 1990. Nigeria then convinced ECOWAS to send 20 men to Liberia. Plunged into a violent civil war, the country has reached a breaking point. Enough to get the community out of its prerogatives. ECOWAS then created the Economic Community of West African States Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). Objective of this force: the ceasefire and its maintenance. Nine years after its creation, ECOMOG, intended to be ephemeral, becomes permanent. After Liberia, the ECOWAS armed forces will then intervene in Sierra-Leone, Togo and Mali, in 000, 1998 and 2005.
The role of ECOWAS "has become more and more political and its action has finally consisted more in promoting regional peace and security than in stimulating West African activities", estimated Rinaldo Depagne, director of the Africa project. West of the International Crisis Group, in a column signed in 2016. ECOWAS has started to play the role of “firefighter” in its member countries. A policy change that has seen its ups and downs. But a major challenge is facing the Economic Community of West African States: beyond internal political crises, West Africa is now faced with transnational criminal and terrorist activities. And for that, ECOWAS seems too little equipped to succeed in its new diplomatic and security mission. The organization, moreover believes the International Crisis Group, should equip itself with "a real pole of the fight against organized crime, understood in the broad sense of the term, and including terrorism, drug trafficking, people or weapons ”.