THE ROLE OF ECOWAS IN THE FIRST LIBERIAN CRISIS

THE ROLE OF ECOWAS IN THE FIRST LIBERIAN CRISIS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Study

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a sub-regional organisation in West Africa, with a membership consisting of Cape Verde, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Cote d’ Ivoire, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Ghana.  In this project, I seek to examine the role played by ECOWAS as well as its military component, the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), in the Liberian conflict, and to consider its performance as a conflict-management mechanism. The first Liberian civil war ended over seventeen years ago, and as Liberia is currently at peace, it is too often unquestionably accepted that ECOWAS was successful in its attempt to bring about peace within the state.  For example Khobe (2000) proclaims that ECOWAS was successful, but other authors such as Gberie (2003) disagree with such sentiments.  Gberie (2003: 154) argues that peacekeeping missions can only be undertaken by West African states with “enormous foreign assistance”.  It does then appear that at the very least there is dissent amongst the literature, with sides supporting varied positions, or advocating different agendas. I therefore seek to contribute to the discussion by widening the foci.  Instead of merely concentrating on ECOMOG, I draw on ECOWAS itself to support my claim that the organisation only hindered Liberia, rather than pacified it.  I will also briefly compare the relative performances of ECOWAS in the conflicts of Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau, to show that the organisation was unable to learn from its own mistakes in Liberia.

1.2 Chapter Plan

In this introductory chapter I highlight my research questions, and consider the current available literature, and how my own work fits in with that.  My methodology and limitations are shown here as well.  In the second chapter I provide a historical background of Liberia, portraying the environment into which ECOWAS would intervene.

THE ROLE OF ECOWAS IN THE FIRST LIBERIAN CRISIS