CONFLICT IN THE BORDER OF SIERRA LEONE AND LIBERIA

Sierra Leone and Liberia are both members of ECOWAS. They both lived a civil war that lasted almost for 15 years. In the following post you will find a description of the events of both wars and a short video showing the geopolitical context of the conflicts.

LIBERIAN CIVIL WAR

Liberia entered in conflict in 1989 when the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) sent forth an incursion from Côte d’Ivoire into Nimba Country, in the North of Liberia. The leader Charles Taylor and his troops, supported by the leaders of Côte d'Ivoire and composed basically by Gio and Mano ethnic groups, wanted to bring down the president of Liberia Samuel Doe. While the war went on, a breakaway group of NPFL captured and executed the president. As a result, ECOWAS tried to lead the process of peace by sending peacekeeping forces, but none of the leaders got involved in the process.

By 1992, Liberia was completely divided and different armed groups kept emerging during the following years. There was an attempt to make an agreement, called the Cotonou Accord, but it was unsuccessful due to the disputes over the transnational government, the emergence of these new armed groups, and the limited resources of peacekeeping forces.

In 1996 there was a remarkable fight in Monrovia after ECOWAS tried to make an agreement and form a transnational government. This incident left hundreds of deads and undermined the credibility of the agreement.

In July 1997, presidential elections were held. Taylor and his party, now called National Patriotic Party, won the election by a large majority. UN official Ellen-Johnson Sirleaf finished second. A year later, fights broke out  between supporters  of Roosevelt Johnson, head of the ULIMO-J, and government forces.

In 1999 the second civil war began when the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) launched attacks in Lofa County, north-west Liberia. Three years later, President Taylor announced the implementation of the state of emergency as a consequence of the approach of LURD fighters to the capital Monrovia. In 2003, another rebel group called Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) opened a second front in the south-east. The same year it was the end of the Taylor government thanks to the Accra Peace Agreement, which also allowed UN peacekeeping forces to secure the Liberian state relatively quickly. The incidence of conflict events between 2003 and 2004 dropped dramatically.

Since the official cessation of violence in 2003, violence has continued but at lower levels.

SIERRA LEONE CIVIL WAR

Sierra Leone entered into a civil war on March the 23rd 1991. When the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), supported with the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone trying to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, caused a huge chaos and 50.000 deaths.

During the first year of the war, the RUF took control of large territories in eastern and southern Sierra Leone, which were rich in diamonds. The government's inefficient reaction against the RUF, and the disruption in government diamond production caused a military coup d'état in April 1992, done by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC).

During late 1993, the Sierra Leone Army had succeeded in confronting the RUF rebels back to the Liberian border, but the RUF pushed back and recovered, thus the fighting continued. In March 1995, Executive Outcomes, a South Africa-based private military company, was hired to fight the RUF. Simultaneously Sierra Leone installed an elected civilian government in March 1996, and the RUF decided to sign the Abidjan Peace Accord. The UN pressured the government to terminate the contract with the private army before the accord was implemented, and once the government had done that, the fights recommenced.

In May 1997 a group of SLA officers staged a coup and established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council as the new government of Sierra Leone. The RUF joined with the AFRC to capture Freetown easily. The new government, led by Johnny Paul Koroma, declared the war over. A wave of civil chaos followed the announcement. ECOMOG forces intervened and retook Freetown on behalf of the government, but they found the outlying regions more difficult to pacify.

In January 1999, world leaders intervened aiming to promote negotiations between the RUF and the government. Consequently, the Lome Peace Accord, signed on 27 March 1999, took place. A high character of the RUF received the vice presidency and control of Sierra Leone's diamond mines in return for an ending of the fighting and the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to organize the disarmament process. RUF commitment to the process was non-existent and by May 2000, the rebels were advancing again upon Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.

When the UN mission began to fail the United Kingdom declared its intention to intervene in the former colony and Commonwealth member in an attempt to support the weak government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. With help from a UN mandate and Guinean air support, the British Operation Palliser finally defeated the RUF, taking control of Freetown. On 18 January 2002, President Kabbah declared the Sierra Leone Civil War over.

All the images are extracted from the webpage http://www.c-r.org/

LOCAL IMPLICATIONS

ABOUT REFUGEES

• SIERRA LEONE REFUGEES

As we have already said the Sierra Leonean Civil War was very chaotic and violent, implied a lot of deaths and tortures to the innocent civilians this is the reason that nearly 400,000 Sierra Leoneans were refugees and asylum seekers at the close of 2000.

The biggest part of them fled from rural areas (during 1997-98) as a consequence of the widespread violence. The majority, more or less 300.000, lived in some refugee camps in GuineA which were really unsafe. Others stayed in Liberia and a few went to various West African States or Europe.

About 13,000 new Sierra Leonean refugees went to Guinea during 2000, as a consequence of clashes in RUF rebel areas. Frightened by the rebel infiltration, Guinean government officials briefly attempted to turn back young Sierra Leonean men at the border and limit entry to women, the elderly, and children under age ten.

As many as 40,000 refugees returned home, to Sierra Leone, during the year. The majority returned to Freetown, the capital, and western Sierra Leone because of armed conflict in Guinea and violence against refugees there.

In the last 4 months of the year, 28,000 Sierra Leoneans returned to Freetown by boat. As the UN estimates, an 80% came from camps in Guinea, and 20% were supposed to be Sierra Leoneans who lived in the Guinean capital but were not registered as refugees.

Ending the year, a huge amount of Sierra Leonean refugees had returned without assistance to eastern Sierra Leone from both Liberia and Guinea, according to UN estimates. They mostly settled in Sierra Leone's Kenema area.

The majority of Sierra Leonean refugees who returned could not return safely to their homes in rebel-held areas. Many sought shelter in already overcrowded camps for internally displaced persons. Others lived in villages, hosted by the local community. A small number chose to return to rebel-held areas on their own.

• LIBERIAN REFUGEES
• 
  

The civil war in Liberia caused 1.28 milion of displaced people, half of the population of the country.

The first refugees were from the ethincal group Mano and Gio, since these were the main Taylor’s guerrilla support and they were being torturated and executed. Only a week after the conflict had broken out, 13000 refugees flight to Guinea. By the beginning of 1990, as the war intensified in Nimba and surrounding areas, some 120,000 refugees had fled to Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea. What first had started as a rebellion, now was becoming an ethic massacre. The war increased the differences among ethnic groups, which fought with each other to get revenge. Therefore, there was a drastic raise in diplaced people and refugees, which reached the million, also due to the fact that the war was not only among combatants but a continuous attack to civilian people.

When the war approached to Monrovia, thousands of city residents scape through the Sierra Leonean border, and others escaped to the inland of Liberia. With a few possessions, many of the refugees began the walk to Sierra Leone, which can last for over a month. About 100.000 civilians fled from the surrounding areas of Monrovia into the capital, where the rebels had been pushed out. Many of the displaced moved in with relatives and friends and some resided in camps for displaced people. As a result, the population of Monrovia has more than doubled stemming from the surge of displaced persons looking for security.

Before the end of 1990, the war had left, homes and buildings looted and destroyed, and offices and businesses shut down. Monrovia had no electricity or water services, jobs, or money. Monrovia's residents starved for months as fighting intensified in and around the capital. People couldn’t get treatment because hospitals and clinics remained closed. By November 1990, the number of Liberian internal displaced people and refugees accounted for nearly one-third of the country's population.

Although Liberian civilians needed urgent help, international response and assistance was slow in coming and inadequate. However, emergency food aid finally arrived in the capital beginning in the last quarter of 1990. Thanks to the United Nations World Food Program, the population in Monrovia finally received food items that were distributed by a local organization. 

While the aid arrived, Liberian refugees were welcomed by local people in neighboring states who provided them with food, shelter and other basic needs. Rather than live in camps, most of the refugees cohabited with host families who shared their limited resources with the newcomers, even though most of the African families were poor and lacked of resources to support their own families. Also, the host governments adopted asylum policies to take in all these displaced people. 

The refugees within Liberia were continually massacred by both sides. For example, 600 people who sought refuge at St Peter’s Lutheran Church and 9,000 uprooted Liberians sheltered in the Baptist-run Ricks Institute were killed, as well as hundreds of displaced refugees in a church serving as a Red Cross shelter. Refugee camps, as it also happens nowadays, were not safe. Liberian displaced persons and refugees in shelters were vulnerable to physical abuse, and were often tortured and massacred. 

The table above shows the number of refugees during some periods of the Liberian Civil War. By then, Liberia was one of the countries with more refugees in the world.

ABOUT ENVIROMENT

• Liberia

The civil war also had enviromental effects on the country. We are going to focus on wetlands in Liberia, on the basis of the Ramsar Convention, a intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. 

According to the Report on the impact of the Liberian civil crisis on wetlands, the relationship between wetlands and Africa’s inhabitants has always been complicated, given the fact that they see wetlands as a waste land. In rural areas, these swamp lands provided the basic subsistence for its residents. They depended on wetlands because they obtained energy supplies, food, shelter, water, medicine and other ecological services from it. They used pit latrines to dispose their wastes. Even so, they had their own laws regarding wetlands environment management.

When the civil conflict broke out in 1990, a very large number of displaced people moved to the capital city of Monrovia. The capital's population increased from 250,000 people to over a million. Therefore, the city could not hold all these displaced people and therefore they remained in wetland areas in the surroundings. However, these wetlands were not prepared to provide such materials and means of living to that great amount of people. Due to the length of the conflict, most of the displaced tried to carry out business activities there. This caused the use of the wetlands as a dumping site, provoking the contamination of the swamp land.

The main ecological implications of this problem was that sewage disposal was very deficient and could not meet the demands resulted to the growth of the population.

Also due to the proportion of metals contained by the waste materials thrown to the wetlands, rivers had become an unsafe place for swimming and fishing.

Moreover, there was a serious health problem. Agriculture activities carried out near the wetlands contained a big amount of chemicals- some of them banned- and underground waters became infected as a result of the filtration of these substances. In rivers, displaced used dynamite and poison baits to kill fishes, contributing to the pollution of the wetlands.

All theses processes have affected the biodiversity of species, making livelihood music difficult for community dwellers. For example, fishermen in some areas find it difficult to make good catches of fish, which complicates their economic benefits.

What has the government been doing to resolve wetland problems?

In orange, the five Ramsar Sites

Liberia accessed and ratificated in 2003 the Ramsar convention on Wetlands. That meant that the county had access to grants to conduct Post-Conflict Wetland Assessment. Thanks to that, there was the establishment of four wetland areas as Ramsar site.

There was also the creation of a Wetland Committee, which created a subcommittee that had to take care of the achivement of the following policies: 

1. Seek relevant legislations for legislative enactment of the proposed policy. The policy after enactment becomes the tool for addressing the issues of wetland problems in Liberia.
2. Establish full manegament authority over all Ramsar sites, involving local authorities and expertise in the project.
3. Integrate wetland issues in national planning process
4. Seek national mobilization process through national awareness program that aims behavioural change towards wetlands.
5. Seek international cooperation with neighbours of shared water resouces.

Refugees from Sierra Leone in Guinea 1999- Extracted from United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)

UN tank in Liberia- Extracted from ramsar.org

Polluted Mesurado river in Monrovia 2004- extracted from ramsar.org

Street vendors on the bridge over the Mesurado River, riverside pollution in the background- extracted from ramsar.org

GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The main issue concerning the global scape concerning both Liberia and Sierra Leone was the refugees' crisis and the extraction of diamonds.

The civil war caused thousands of people to forcefully move out from their homes. The neighbour countries were not prepared for that massive amount of displaced, who were mainly concentrated in refugees camps, not in good conditions.

However, the real problem appeared when these people wanted to go back to their homes. In the case of Liberia, the land had been changing hands and occupied during the absence of its owners. Even if they could have it back, there was no guarantee that someone else would reclaim it. 

In order to incentive mediation, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) started a project in Liberia. The council only works if both parties are interested in discussing the issue. The mediators in NRC are all Liberian so that there are no cultural misunderstandings.

The UN Refugee Agency had also a relevant role with the refugees in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In both countries, they provided basic humanitarian help to the refugees in camps. The UNHCR programme tried to help the victims of violence and provide a safe environment away from the conflicted border for all the people who had left their country. One of their objectives was also to make the return of the refugees easy and to help them reintegrate.

Furthermore, two institutions promoted the achievement and maintenance of peace. The first one was the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This institution keeps an eye on the security sector, ensuring that police are well trained and tries to make the courts functioning. 

The second institution is WANEP (West African Network for Peacebuilding). Their organized roundtable consultations that promoted social cohesion, since they talked about the issues that concerned the most to their participants. Depending on the country, they focus on issues such as peacebuilding, women or education.

The second global issue is the economic one. Sierra Leone but also Liberia are great mines of diamonds. During the war, these diamonds were extracted illegally and sold at a lower price in order to finance the war. In fact, Charles Taylor was declared guilty of financing the war with these diamonds in 2010. 

Taking advantage of the unstable situation of the area, private companies bought these diamonds. The foreign governments, which knew the consequences of buying the mineral to the West African country, did not undertake any measure to stop it and actually these diamonds were sold for a really long period of time.

SUMMARY

The border issue we have treated was caused by indirect reasons, it was caused because of two civil wars which happened at the same time in countries that are located one next to the other, obviously, the civil wars were more or less interconnected and both influenced each other. And the conflict raised when the citizens of a country that was in a civil war decided to find a shelter outside their country, and as citizens of the both countries thought the same a conflict was created, since one of the countries they tried to migrate to was in a civil war too.

After this research we are going to define some concepts taking into account the aforementioned landscape:

Region: A large area of a surface, space, or body.

In this case we could say that the region is not really limited by borders or anything, since the conflict occurs in the West African zone, because, even though the issue we have treated happened in the Liberian-Sierra Leonean border the whole zone was influenced.

Border: The line that separates one country, province, etc., from another.

In this case the border we have considered as subject of our work is the Liberian-Sierra Leonean border but during the conflict it becomes a really blurry border because of all the migrations and movements from one country to the other.

Sovereignty: the quality or state of being sovereign.

Sovereign: Having supreme power or authority.

This issue is much more complex to analyze, since both civil wars initialized because of a lack of recognition of the supposed sovereign power. During the period of the conflict different organizations considered themselves as the sovereign actor, this is why the conflict existed.

So, in our framework the sovereignty laid on different actors which measured with each other through violence and terror.

Diplomacy: The conduct by government officials of relations between nations.

As we have said in the last definition they proved to each other with violence, so there were no “official relations” between the organizations. During the period the issue happened there were two organizations that took the responsibility of the diplomacy in that situation, the UN and ECOWAS, these two institutions were used as mediators to arrive to an agreement in both countries.

Definitions extracted from http://www.wordreference.com

References

BBC (29 September 2013). In pictures: Charles Taylor and the Liberia and Sierra Leone wars. http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-17768957


BBC News (2001). Liberia closes Sierra Leone border. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1230370.stm


BBC News (April 26 2012). Charles Taylor guilty: judges excerpts, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17852488


Conciliation Resources. West Africa: Liberia and Sierra Leone. http://www.c-r.org/accord/west-africa-liberia-and-sierra-leone


Davies, R. (1996). The Sierra Leone situation: the spill-over of the Liberian civil war into Sierra Leone: peace-making and peace-keeping possibilities, report, UN Institute for Training and Research/International Peace Academy, New York.


Drew, E., & Ramsbotham, A. (2012) Consolidating peace Liberia and Sierra Leone. Conciliation Resources.


French, H. (1994). Liberia's War Refugees Now United in Misery. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/17/world/liberia-s-war-refugees-now-united-in-misery.html


ICRC. Case Study, Armed Conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea (1980-2005) https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/case-study-armed-conflicts-sierra-leone-liberia-and-guinea-1980-2005


INDEXMUNDI https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/sierra-leone.liberia


Nmoma, V. (1997).. The Civil War and the Refugee Crisis in Liberia. The Journal of Conflict Studies https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/11734/12489


Pérez, A. (June 2000) Le Monde diplomatique. UN peacekeeps for rival gangsters. Sierra Leone’s diamond wars.


Peters, K., & Richards, P. (1998). ‘Why we fight’: Voices of youth combatants in Sierra Leone. Africa, 68(2), 183-210. doi:10.2307/1161278


Richards, P. Rainforests, diamonds & war: The Sierra Leone-Liberia boundary wilderness. Wageningen Agricultural University


Scodaniddio, L. (2006). Report on the impact of the Liberian civil crisis on wetlands. Ramsar.org. https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/swiss/sga_liberia_postconflict_rpt.pdf


The Library of Congress. History Of Liberia: A Time Line - Maps of Liberia https://www.loc.gov/collections/maps-of-liberia-1830-to-1870/articles-and-essays/history-of-liberia/


United Nations Human Rights Council (1999). Sierra Leonean Refugee Operation http://www.unhcr.org/3e2d4d6711.pdf


United Nations Human Rights Council (2009). Liberia. http://www.unhcr.org/4922d41c0.pdf


US Comitee for Refugees and Immigrants (2001). USCR Country Report Sierra Leone: Statistics on refugees and other uprooted people. https://reliefweb.int/report/guinea/uscr-country-report-sierra-leone-statistics-refugees-and-other-uprooted-people-jun


VOA. (2013). Land Disputes Threaten Liberia's Post-War Peace. https://www.voanews.com/a/land-disputes-threaten-liberias-post-war-peace/1584829.html


Ward, K. (2003). Might Vs. Right: Charles Taylor and the Sierra Leone special court. Human Rights Brief. Volume 11. Issue 1. Article 3, p. 8-11.


Young Jang, S. (October 25 2012). E-International Relations Students: The Causes of the Sierra Leone Civil War. http://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/25/the-causes-of-the-sierra-leone-civil-war-underlying-grievances-and-the-role-of-the-revolutionary-united-front/

ABOUT US

We are Irene Fernández and Adrià Montserrat, two students of a degree on Global Studies. Since we have international inquisitiveness we wanted to research about ECOWAS, and in the following entries you will be able to see the outcome of our research. A description of the organization, a notion of its history and different approaches to this noteworthy but unknown institution.

ABOUT ECOWAS

In the following entry you will be able to read all you need to know about ECOWAS itself, its characteristics, history, etc.

ECOWAS stands for Economic Community of West African States. As its name denotes, it is a community formed by some of the Western African States, specifically 15 states, which decided to collaborate in economy activities such as industry, communication, transportation or commerce between others. It is not just an economic institution; the members also share responsibilities concerning cultural and social issues.

The Community is formed by six institutions: ECOWAS Comission, Community of Court of Justice, Community of Parliament, ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, West African Health Organization and The Inter-Govermental Action Group agains Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa. Moreover, it has some specialized agencies such as the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority, the ECOWAS Centre for Renowable Energy and Energy Efficiency or the West African Monetary Institution among others.

Their government structure comprises three arms of governance: Executive, Judiciary and Governmental. The leader of the organization is called Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, and automatically he or she becomes the Chairman of Council of Ministers. The Chairman is a one-year position which its main function is to preside over all ECOWAS meetings. The head of the Executive arm is the President of ECOWAS Commission, a position which can be occupied for only four years. The President has a Vice President and 13 Commissioners that help on the tasks.

ECOWAS is legislated by a Parliament headed by the Speaker of the Parliament. The Secretary General of the Parliament is the responsible of the administrative functions. Parliamentarians are chosen by national Parliaments to the Community Parliament for a period of four years. 

The judicial arm of the Community is the Community Court of Justice, headed by the President. Every Member State send to the Court judges from their Nacional Courts. Its functions are interpret and apply community laws, protocols and conventions.

Before the creation of ECOWAS the territory known as West Africa was formed by different lands emerged of the process of decolonization. Even though they use the official languages of the institution – French, Portuguese and English – there are plenty of native cross-countries languages that still alive in the region.

When the colonization process had not happened, in the regions of Africa huge kingdoms were spread all over the territory, kingdoms with a common culture and social settings. The process of colonization and decolonization created fake boundaries to divide the territory, thus it was easier for the European powers to share the lands.

Although a lot of time has passed, the ancient cultures and the essence of the empires and what they represented still alive. This is why the main aim of ECOWAS is the integration, in all senses, economic, cultural, social, etc. The target of combining politically and economically forces has always been recognised as a step forward in the desire to engender co-prosperity in the area.

Some examples of this aspiration of integrity appeared in 1945 with the creation of the common currency named CFA franc, this process did not enhance the African identity but integrate all the francophone colonies under the same currency.

Later, in 1964 the president of Liberia – William Tubman – proposed an economic union within the Western African countries, this led to an agreement on 1965 with 4 countries: Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Nevertheless, it was not since 1972 that the project started shaping, when the Nigerian head of state Gen Yakubu Gowon and his Togolese counterpart Gnassingbe Eyadema toured the region in support of the integration idea. As a consequence of these the Treaty of Lagos took place and, in 1975, the Economic Community Of Western African States was created.

Currently, it has its base in Nigeria since 2007, from where they are still trying to implement different programmes which have the purpose of achieve full integration. For the moment, the members of the association have the right of free movement as well as access to education and health attention.

Regarding the membership the states which form part of it, obviously, must be located geographically in the West of Africa. Since it is a relatively young institution the member states have been almost the same since its birth.

DATE	COUNTRY
1975	Entrance of: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Burkina Faso.
1977	Entrance of: Cape Verde
2002	Withdrawal of: Mauritania

If we take a look to the numbers that represent the ECOWAS worldwide we can notice the following:

	ECOWAS	Worldwide	ECOWAS representation
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)	560.194 USD billions ($)	75.648.448 USD bilions ($)	0.7%
Population	377.436.546 individuals	7.615.453.149 individuals	4.96%
Territory	5.114.162 km²	148.940.000 km²	3.43%

We can see an evident issue concerning the GDP in the West African region, since it is inside of what is known as third world. We can see a big unevenness between the share of population owned by the ECOWAS region and the share of the GDP they represent.

The member state with the highest GDP is Nigeria. This country is one of the most contributive to ECOWAS: Nigeria has always watched over the resolution of conflicts in West Africa and contributed with resources to reach the objectives of the organization. That is why this country has a great number of seats in the parliament (35) compared to other members. The second state member with more seats is Ivory Coast (7).





Using a bigger scope we can find out that Africa is a huge continent which has different economic regions, the one we have decided to analyze is ECOWAS but there are a few more, but the most important are:

• ECCAS (Economic Community of Central African States)
• EASFCOM (Eastern African Standby Force Community)
• SADC (Southern African Development Community)

To financiate the programmes of ECOWAS, ECOWAS Fund was created. But in 1999 this institution became the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) and entered in function in 2003.

The objectives of this institution is basically promote both private and public sector through financing of projects and programmes in transportation, health,energy or environment.Its mission is also to encourage the economic integration of West Africa at a regional and global level.

Overall, EBID aims at contributing to the economic development of West Africa through the financing of projects and programmes in particular, those related to transport, energy, telecommunications, industry, poverty alleviation, the environment and natural resources.

ECOWAS has also an economic partnership with the European Union called EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement). The main objective of this agreement is the free trade between West Africa and Europe in order to contribute to a sustainable development and the eradication of poverty in West Africa.
West Africa has also a Economic and Monetarian Union (UEMOA), but it only has eight member states: Benin, Bisseau Guinea, Burkina Fasso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.


Since ECOWAS is an international recognized economic region we wanted to research a little bit about its influence and appearance in a global scale, and we thought the best way to understand its role in a global level was looking through the media.
What surprised us the most, and also gave us an understanding of the relevance of ECOWAS and the Third World in this mentioned scale, is that ECOWAS does not appear in the international media. In our opinion this is a consequence of the westernized world where we live.

COMPARATION WITH AFRICAN UNION

To understand a little bit more what is the ECOWAS and how it operates we have decided to compare it with another African region, but the region we have decided to use as a comparison is not an economic one, it is more similar to a political region, the African Union.


The biggest institution that advocates for the cooperation within Africa is the African Union (AU). This institution sees itself as “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.” It has 55 members, including all of ECOWAS.
The govermental structure of ECOWAS and AU is similar, although this last one has other councils such as the peace and security.
They work on similar projects such as gender equality, trade, agiculture or social affairs. However, ECOWAS is more focused on economic integration and AU looks for the recognizion of the African States in the global arena.
The African Union doesn’t have working institutions for economic integration. They have three projects in mind which are the African Central Bank, the African Investment Bank and the African Monetary Found. On the other hand, ECOWAS has the Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) and a economic partnership with Europe that allows the institution to head toward the economic integration of West African States.


Despite that, both institutions also collaborate. On September 17th 2017, they met to share experiences on civil-military coordination and to talk about improve the level of collective response to the challenges of peace and security on Africa.

REFERENCES

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) | African Union. Au.int. Retrieved 15 April 2018, from https://au.int/en/recs/ecowas

Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS)  Ecowas.int. Retrieved 16 April 2018, from http://www.ecowas.int

International Democracy Watch. Internationaldemocracywatch.org. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from http://www.internationaldemocracywatch.org

MAYAKI, H. (2017). ECOWAS and AU share experience on civil-military coordination | Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS). Ecowas.int. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from http://www.ecowas.int/ecowas-and-au-share-experience-on-civil-military-coordination/

Nigeria's Leadership Roles in Africa and Daunting Challenges  (2016). Economic Confidential. Retrieved 26 April 2018, from https://economicconfidential.com/features/nigerias-leadership-roles-in-africa-and-daunting-challenges/

Population of Western Africa (2018) Worldometers.info. Retrieved 17 April 2018, from http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/western-africa-population/

What Countries are Members of ECOWAS?.ThoughtCo. Retrieved 15 April 2018, from https://www.thoughtco.com/economic-community-west-african-states-ecowas-43900

Worldometers - real time world statistics. (2018). Worldometers. Retrieved 15 April 2018, from http://www.worldometers.info

ECOWAS' ROLE IN THE FIRST LIBERIAN CIVIL WAR (Adrià Montserrat)

After an in-depth investigation of the ECOWAS the way it operates and a taste of its history I wanted to research about a specific problem in which one of the members has been involved, the Liberian Civil War.
The following essay will introduce what is Liberia and its relationship with the ECOWAS, and after a description of the conflict and how it has raised I will try to state the role of the Economic Community Of Western African States within this issue.

Liberia, officially known as the Republic of Liberia, is a country located on the West African coast. It is limited by Sierra Leone to its west, Guinea to its north and Ivory Coast to its east, the Atlantic Ocean to its south. It covers an area of 111,369 and has a population of approximately 4,700,000 people. English is the official language but there are also over 20 indigenous languages which are spoken, representing the numerous ethnic groups who make up more than 95% of the population. The capital of the country and largest – and best-known – city is Monrovia.


The Republic of Liberia was created as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who thought that black people would have better opportunities for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States. The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U.S. did not recognize Liberia's independence until during the American Civil War on February 5, 1862.
The colored people who went to stablish to Liberia carried their culture and tradition with them. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected as Liberia's first president, on the January of the 1848. Liberia is the oldest modern republic in Africa.


In the last decades Liberia has suffered an internal conflict, The First Liberian Civil War in its territory, went from 1989 until 1997. The conflict meant the death of about 250,000 people approximately and eventually led to the involvement of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and of the United Nations. The peace did not last long, and in 1999 the Second Liberian Civil War broke out.



The First Liberian Civil War started because of Samuel Doe, who was a military leader, had led a coup d'état that overthrew the elected government in 1980, and in 1985 held elections that were considered internationally as fraudulent and unfair, because the result was known before the elections, obviously Samuel Doe was going to be the next president of the Republic of Liberia. During the first years of Doe’s mandate a different coup d’état was done by Thomas Quiwonkpa, the former Commanding General of the Armed Forces of Liberia whom Doe had demoted and forced to leave the country. He tried to overthrow Doe’s power, but he was unsuccessful.
After some years, in December 1989, former government minister Charles Taylor moved into the country from Côte d'Ivoire, the neighbor state, to start an uprising with the aim of toppling the Doe government.

Taylor's forces, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) battled against Prince Johnson's rebel group, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) – a faction of NPFL – for control in Monrovia. In 1990, Johnson seized the capital of Monrovia and executed Doe.

Peace negotiations and foreign involvement, UN and ECOWAS took part in the conflict, led to a ceasefire in 1995 that was broken the next year before a final peace agreement and new national elections were held in 1997. Taylor was elected President of Liberia in July 1997. But the peace did not last too much since, in 1999, the Second Liberian Civil War started.

In the following part I will focus on the role of the foreign institutions in the war. The ECOWAS decided to took part in it, nevertheless ECOWAS is an economic region, because of the following reasons:

1.  Member states of ECOWAS were frightened of the regional instability that was inevitable due to the overflow and displacement of refugees in neighboring countries. General Erskine of ECOMOG (Military Observer Group sent by the ECOWAS) stated that, “with the crisis in Liberia creating unbearable refugee problems for Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Gambia, Guinea, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, it is obvious that the situation in Liberia has gone beyond the boundaries of the country and ceases to be an exclusive Liberian question.”
2. The election of some West African leaders to take part in the Liberian crisis as single states, the said that involvement aimed to be humanitarian. In its Final Communiqué, the Standing Committee gave humanitarian reasons for its decisions, adding that, “presently, there is a government in Liberia which cannot govern and contending factions which are holding the entire population as hostage, depriving them of food, health facilities and other basic necessities of life.” 
3.  The third reason stated for the intervention was based on the 1981 ECOWAS Protocol concerning to Mutual Assistance in Defense. Regarding to Article 16 of the beforementioned Protocol, the Head of State of a member state under attack may request a response through actions or assistance from the community. 

Aside the mentioned motives there were specific motives for each country, there were some countries (members of the ECOWAS) who wanted to take part in the issue because they had specific motivations for doing so.

Finally, the ECOWAS decided to use the ECOMOG as a way of intervening, but this raised a controversial issue, ECOMOG’s deployment in Liberia created significant questions about its legitimacy and authority, neutrality, and if it was useful. Even though the intervention signified a peacekeeping force, the consistent denial by NPFL of ECOMOG’s compromised neutrality undermined its authority in Liberia. As early as October 1990, the neutrality and peacekeeping nature of ECOMOG was in doubt especially when it was seen as taking an “active” role in alliance with the INPFL and AFL.

On 9 September 1990, who was known as the origin of all this conflict, Samuel Doe was captured, tortured and then killed by INPFL.

Concerning the diplomatic sector, ECOWAS was forced to begin a long and slow research for the efficient formula that would unify the country under free, fair and democratic elections. The institution tried several times, the first attempt came with peace talks in Bamako, Mali on 27 November 1990 and the promise of the Interim Government of National Unity under Amos Sawyer, with ECOMOG providing a security zone for it around Monrovia. Two other peace talks were held at Lome, Togo on the 12 February 1991, and Monrovia, Liberia on the 15 March 1991.

However, all three talks were not successful because of, in part, Charles Taylor’s refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the interim government and his claim that he should be president since he controlled over 90% of Liberia and he was the real president and he had to be, there was no option. These refusals coming from Taylor, created a higher tension within the situation since it seemed that it was stuck.

These tensions were translated into massacres and thousands of deaths and aiming to reduce the tensions and solving the problem the UN Security Council established an Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) which was to remain unarmed, while ECOMOG troops were to provide their security. This was the first joint UN/regional peacekeeping mission. It was the first time where the United Nations enrolled in a co-operation with a peace-keeping mission already set up by another organization, in this ECOWAS.

Years later, in August 1995, the main parties signed an agreement, at a conference sponsored by ECOWAS, the United Nations and the United States, the European Union, and the Organization of African Unity (in this moment the issue became international as we can see in the foreign institutions which took part). Surprisingly, Charles Taylor agreed to a cease-fire and a schedule to demobilize and disarm his army.

In 1997, the citizens from Liberian elected Charles Taylor as their President after he entered by force the capital city, Monrovia. Liberians had voted for Taylor hoping that he would end the bloodshed. The bloodshed did slow considerably, but it did not end, nevertheless the First Liberian Civil War did arrive at its end.


Concluding, after all the research and reading I have done I summarized more or less the narrative of the war and also the participation of the foreign institutions, focusing on the institution I have worked about in the other part of the project, ECOWAS, comes to my mind one question, the ECOWAS intervention was a success or a failure?


REFERENCES

- Cyril I. Obi (2009) Economic Community of West African States on the Ground: Comparing Peacekeeping in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and Côte D'Ivoire, African Security, 2:2-3, 119-135

- E-International Relations. (2018). Violent Peacekeeping: An Evaluation of the Performance of ECOWAS in the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996). [online] Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2013/09/05/violent-peacekeeping-an-evaluation-of-the-performance-of-ecowas-in-the-first-liberian-civil-war-1989-1996

- Sites.tufts.edu. (2018). ECOWAS and the Subregional Peacekeeping in Liberia | The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance. [online] Available at: https://sites.tufts.edu/jha/archives/66

- Wippman, D. (1993). Enforcing The Peace: ECOWAS and the Liberian Civil War: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts. In L. F. Damrosch (Ed.), Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts Council on Foreign Relations Press.

ECOWAS AND ENVIRONMENT POLICIES (Irene Fernández)

ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) is a cooperation's project between some states in West Africa. Although their main objective is promoting economic integration, they also advocate cultural and social issues. The economic collaboration was born with the idea of stimulating the growth of the economy in the states members. However, ECOWAS gamble on a sustainable economic development, creating agencies to promote the respect to the environment. 

The agency within ECOWAS in charge of the environment is called ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE). It was created in 2007 based on the Ouagadougou Declaration, but it was not until 2010 that the agency was officially funded. It received economic support from a variety of countries and institutions such as the Governments of Brazil, Austria and Spain or the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This organization was created due to the challenges of energy poverty, energy security and climate change mitigation that the countries of ECOWAS face. 

Although ECREEE is a specialized agency, it acts within the framework of norms and regulations of ECOWAS. The institution has an Executive Board, which approves annual work plans and inspects reports, financial states and organizes the structure of ECREEE; The Technical Committee, which provides technical guidance to the Executive Board and Secretariat of ECREEE; the Secretariat which implements activities and elaborates annual work plans, status reports and presents the documents for review and approval to the Technical Committee and the Executive Board; and the National Focal Institutions that is the intermediary between the Secretariat and the Energy Ministers from all ECOWAS Member States. 

The overall objectives of ECREE are first of all the achievement of the goals of the ECOWAS Renewable Energy Policy (EREP) and the ECOWAS Energy Efficiency Policy (EEEP). The EREP’s plan aim is to raise the energy share supplies of the Member States from an efficient use of the renewable energy sources that will permit universal access to electricity by 2030 and a more sustainable provision of domestic energy services for cooking. On the other hand, EEEP has similar objectives: to reduce losses in electricity distribution, to achieve universal access to safe and clean sustainable cooking or to establish found for the development and implementation of sustainable energy problems. In order to achieve these projects, the action plan is incentiving efficient lightening by replacing incandescent lamps for LED lamps, reducing commercial losses in electricity distribution systems or developing and adopting efficiency energy standards for buildings. The second goal of ECREE is to ensure access to energy reliable services, to double the improvement in energy efficiency and the share of renewable energy by 2030, following the objectives of the UN Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. The third one is to increase regional electric generation capacity by 2025 through hydro and gas. And the last one is the ECOWAS White Paper on Energy, which estimates that 20% of new investments in rural electrification should be generated from locally available renewable resources. 

As a more concrete plan, ECREEE is acting to promote a more sustainable cooking in West Africa. A high number of population uses traditional biomass for cooking, in an unsustainable manner and on inefficient stoves. Health problems in children and women are often due to the smoke derived from cooking. That is why the institution is trying to implement sustainably produced wood energy markets, as well as improved stoves and modern clean alternative fuels, research and development for the maturity of efficient cooking technologies and equipment, access to finance for the development of the clean cooking sector and a gender strategy for balanced and equitable development of clean cooking sector. 

Another ECOWAS's project is the facilitation of renewable energy to rural and peri-urban areas. The institution asked for proposals to develop this issue in different areas of West Africa, with the idea of spending 1 million euros. 41 programmes coming from NGO’s, governmental institutions, research centers and companies were approved. For example, in the region of Cote d’Ivoire there is a project for the installation of a photovoltaic hybrid system and the creation of a technical training workshop in issues related to renewable energy and energy efficiency. One of this workshop took place the 13th April 2018 in Abidjan. 

Portable clay cooking stove

Furthermore, another proposal, this one to implement in Guiné-Bissau, is to improve biomass use in this area through the promotion of energy efficient portable clay cook stoves in the rural households. 

There are also regional prospectus: for instance, promoting renewable energies in West Arica by exchanging knowledge with interactive online maps, supporting this way awareness raise and business activities and partnerships. 

In conclusion, ECOWAS is intensively involved in environmental issues and carries out projects through the specialized agency ECREEE. Apart from the proposals in renewable energy or sustainable cooking explained above, the agency is also an advocate for the fight of climate change. Although West Africa is still a poor region with economic, political and social problems, the several institutions working for its development are doing its job and step by step the programmes are being accomplished. 

REFERENCES



ECREEE. Ecreee.org. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from http://www.ecreee.org/

     OTHER SPECIFIC PROJECTS. Retrieved  15 April 2018, from http://www.ecreee.org/page/other-specific-projects 

     WEST AFRICAN CLEAN COOKING ALLIANCE (WACCA). Retrieved 15 April 2018, from http://www.ecreee.org/Project/wacca

     Renewable Energy Facility for peri-urban and rural areas (EREF) Retrieved 16 April 2018, from http://www.ecreee.org/page/renewable-energy-facility-peri-urban-and-rural-areas-eref

     ECREEE held its 2nd Media Workshop for Francophone ECOWAS Countries (2018). Retrieved 17 April 2018, from http://www.ecreee.org/news/ecreee-held-its-2nd-media-workshop-francophone-ecowas-countries

     ECOWAS Renowable Energy and Energy Efficency Status Report (2014). Retrieved 20 April 2018, from http://www.ren21.net/Portals/0/documents/activities/Regional%20Reports/ECOWAS_EN.pdf


ECOWREX. Ecowrex.org. Retrieved 26 April 2018, from http://www.ecowrex.org/


International Union for Conservation of Nature (2016) West Africa Environmental Policy. Retrieved 26 April 2018, from https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/content/documents/policy_brief_wa_environmnetal_policy.pdf


UN Environment (2016) UN Environment Strengthens Ties with ECOWAS to Advance Environmental Sustainability in West Africa. Retrieved 20 April 2018, from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/un-environment-strengthens-ties-ecowas-advance-environmental-sustainability