The Role of the Economic Community of the West African States
ECOWAS -Conflict Management in Liberia
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On December 24, 1989, Liberia was plunged into a cataclysmic civil conflict. The conflict was triggered by a group of Liberian dissidents and exiles who fled from Samuel Kenyon Doe’s dictatorship. The group entered Liberia through neighboring Ivory Coast, operating under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) headed by Charles Taylor. The NPFL’s objective was to overthrow the regime of Doe. Doe’s military responded to the rebellion with force that led to the civil conflict and ECOMOG’s quest for resolution. The civil conflict has claimed the lives of about 800,000 people; it has destroyed the country’s infrastructure; it has forced more than half of the country’s population to flee to the neighboring countries to seek refuge. Government buildings, schools, private homes and businesses have been destroyed. Presently, many Liberians suffer from the lack of basic goods and services.
Over the last seven-years, Liberia was engulfed in a genocidal civil conflict. The conflict led to the overthrow of the regime of Samuel Kenyon Doe, who came to power in a bloody military coup d’etat on April 12, 1980.1 Despite the magnitude of the conflict in terms of the loss of human lives, the destruction of the country’s infrastructure, and the implications for stability in the West African region, the Liberian civil conflict has received perfunctory treatment both in the Western media, communication network, and in the academic circles. There are many reasons for this attitude: (1) Liberia does not possess a strategic mineral that is significant to the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Thus, the Liberian civil conflict is perceived as being peripheral to the vital interests of these powers; (2) The Liberian civil conflict coincided with the conflict in the Persian Gulf. Given the significance of the Gulf War to the United States and its allies, the Western media concentrated on the Gulf War, and marginalized the Liberian conflict and the others that were taking place in the rest of the Third World.2 This situation, plus considerations of sub-regional security and stability, motivated ECOWAS through ECOMOG to intervene in the Liberian civil conflict in an effort to resolve the conflict.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The present study looks at the Liberian civil conflict which is the by-product of the modern development of the Liberian state and monopoly formation since 1822. Americo-Liberians domination of the political, social and economic development of Liberia and the exclusion of the indigenous population is one of the major factors in the Liberian civil conflict. Moreover, the Liberian situation has been historically and politically approached by the U.S. and its allies in an effort to impose their preferred regional solutions on other peoples and states where there has been resistance at every turn. Intervention in this situation primarily to a traditional Super Powers form of an interstate perspective without much regard for origin and pre-emptive intervention of African regional organization requires careful analyses. Therefore, the problem outlined and developed in this study in the context of the Liberian civil conflict, requires an analysis of the facts and issues that will require for both national and international organizations to seek a peaceful solution of the Liberian civil conflict. In light of both African regional organizations and U.S. and its allies efforts and methods, (i.e.) interstate and intrastate meth- AMOS MOHAMMED "DELUXE" SIRLEAF, PH.D. ods of conflict management and resolution, there is a possibility that both would provide a more balance picture, greater understanding, and solution to post cold-world conflicts like the Liberian situation.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
There are five objectives of this study: (1) to undertake and provide an in-depth study of ECOWAS intervention in the Liberian civil conflict from 1990 to 1997; (2) to evaluate the role of ECOMOG in particular, and ECOWAS in general as conflict resolution and peacekeeping mechanism, ECOWAS being an economic organization; (3) to evaluate ECOWAS experience and responsibility in Liberia as a model for future peacekeeping in Africa in the context of Article (52)(1) of the UN Charter, and the ECOWAS Protocol of Non-Aggression signed in Darker on April 22, 1978, particularly the protocol relating to Mutual Assistance on Defense signed in Sierra Leone, on May, 29, 1981; (4) to analyze the role of Liberian civil society in conflict resolution having viewed the role of the civil society as a necessary component to any successful third party’s intervention; (5) to provide a brief historical, political, social, and economic background to the Liberian civil conflict in an effort to make a contribution to the vast literature on conflict resolution and peace studies by using the Liberian civil conflict and ECOMOG’s role in its conflict resolution as a case study, and also to suggest solutions. The study also predicts that ECOMOG’s success in the resolution of the Liberian civil conflict will lead to the emergence of a new mechanism for conflict resolution and peacekeeping in Africa, specifically in West Africa. Indeed, the Liberian civil conflict is a matter of careful study due to its implications for Africa in particular and international community in general.
This study tends to examine the factors involved in peace process and the theoretical issues that are the subject of scholarly discussions. A substantial body of literature has emerged on the subject of conflict resolution. However, the major problems with the literature are the United Nation’s mandates, which are based on Eurocentric methods of conflict resolution, and which focus primarily on the role of the U.S./U.N. in addressing various conflicts. Notable examples of the Euro-African conflict resolution paradigm are exemplified in Boutros Boutros Ghali’s (1992) work An Agenda for Peace; Peter J. Schraeder’s (1960s) book Intervention into 1990s U.S. Foreign Policy in the Third World; and Leonard W. Doob & William J. Foltz’s (1964) books on patriotism and nationalism; French West Africa to the Mali Federation. Obviously, these methods are not always relevant to the African methods of conflict resolution. For example, the emphasis on conflict resolution by the U.S./U.N., are sometimes based on "interstate" conflicts, i.e., European method of looking at conflicts on a state-bystate basis or between and among states of a federal government. In many instances, African methods of reviewing various conflicts, specifically civil conflicts, are geographically, based on country-by country or town-by-town. The interaction of different elements of "civil society" which we are now being told has either broken down in Sub-Saharan African.
This thesis discussed some problems from the interstate approach. Specifically, it analyzed the role of regional organizations and economic groupings such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in conflict resolution and management in accordance with article 52 (1) of the United Nations Charter.
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This study identifies and analyzes the historical forces and factors responsible for the present situation in Liberia, and the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in resolving the conflict. It is anchored in two fundamental perspectives: (a) the present crisis in Liberia can be traced to the historical conditions at the time of the country’s founding and the patterns of leadership that existed in the country; (b) the regional collective security dimension of the conflict in Liberia within which the peacemaking and peacekeeping operations and the overall management of the conflict should be studied and evaluated.
This dissertation argues that the crisis today is the result of an undemocratic process of governance, which polarized Liberians between the self-styled "Americo-Liberians" and the marginalized "natives." This hegemonic domination of life in Liberia was unchallenged until the coup d’etat led by Samuel K. Doe in 1980.
The renewed emphasis on liberalization and reform policies of President William R. Tolbert created the circumstances that led to the 1980 coup d’etat that removed President Tolbert from power. It subjects Tolbert’s policies to a critical and theoretical analysis and argues that failure to implement what was originally promised to the majority of Liberians led to the political breakdown of the 1980’s. Related to this argument is the point that the collapse of the Liberian state led to a state of lawlessness and the growth of private armies vying to capture the state. This study examined the various historical, political, and economic developments that shaped Liberia and set the stage for the present conflict. The breakdown has also necessitated the intervention of the West African States of ECOWAS under the auspices of the Economic Community Of Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). The study analyzed the key developments in the Liberian conflict especially with special reference to the role ECOWAS\ECOMOG.
The study concludes that Liberia’s legitimacy and sovereignty can once again be restored and recognized by the international community, if President Taylor and the various rebel factions (many of whom are now opposition political parties) were to cooperate with ECOMOG’s efforts to resolve the genocidal civil conflict. The random killing of Liberians by these factions from December 24, 1989 up to the ECOMOG sponsored elections of July 19, 1997 is like some other African and international civil conflicts, which has been viewed by this study as "The Killing Fields." ECOMOG’s patient but determined endeavors to liberate Liberia and its people from the needless crisis must be the highest hope for all Liberians. In addition, Liberians at home and abroad are the actual cornerstones for assisting the ECOMOG’s peace process, national rehabilitation, reconstruction, and recovery. This study predicts that the success of ECOMOG in the Liberian civil conflict will not only create a stable environment for peace and democracy in Liberia, but will also create a model of peacekeeping in Africa. This will have a profound impact on peace and cooperative security in the West African sub-region in particular, and in Africa in general.
About the Author
Dr. Amos Mohammed D. Sirleaf was born October 24, 1952 onto the union of Mohammed and Ma Massah Dorley Sirleaf. He comes from an entire family of Muslims from the Mandingo Ethnic-Vai background. There were four boys and three girls in the immediate family. In 1990, his youngest brother was killed during the seven years Liberian civil conflict. Five years later, his youngest sisters and older brother died from war-related diseases. His father died when he was young and he did not know him. At the age of four, his parents sent him away to the "Koranic School" where he studied the Islamic-Muslim Religious Faith, as his brothers and sisters had done. In 1964, after completion of the Koranic studies, he fled from the village where he was sent to learn the Holly Koran to an industrialized City (Bong Mines), where he forced himself in western school against the will of his parents who despised western education. In 1980, he graduated from the Booker T. Washington Industrial Institution in Kakata, Liberia, West Africa, where he majored in Auto Mechanics. In 1982, he matriculated to the United States of America in the State of Texas, at Prairie View A&M University where he enrolled in 1984. In 1987, he graduated with a B.Sc. degree in law enforcement and criminal justice. In 1988, Dr. Sirleaf earned his M.A. degree in sociology and social work from Prairie View A&M University, Texas. In 1989, he matriculated to Washington, D.C. to pursue his Ph.D. degree at Howard University, where he graduated in 1999 and majored in conflict resolution and international relations, from the African Studies and Research Department with emphasis in African-American and African Studies.
He is married with four children, two girls and two boys. His older daughter attends Howard University, Washington, D.C., majoring in Medicine. His wife and three of his children are residing with them in Maryland-USA. He is employed at Howard University in the public safety and student affairs department and an Instructor at the Metropolitan Areas Consortium of Universities Police Academy, Washington, D.C. and a substitute teacher at Prince George’s County Public School System. Also he is Professor of Cultural Science Research at the Cultural Science Research and Development Institute, Inc.
As a native Liberian, educated primarily in the United States, with extensive international experience, Dr. Sirleaf brings an unique perspective to any discussion of African Development-both past and future. His expertise is African political development, conflict resolution and international relations, African and African American studies, as well as being an expert on African and particularly, Liberian national and international affairs.