A Security and Mediation Council is to be set up in West Africa under a protocol on the prevention, management and settlement conflicts approved at the 22nd ECOWAS summit that ended on Friday in Lome.
Ten countries have been designated to sit on the Council: Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.
A council of wise men is also to be set up to help preserve peace in the subregion. ECOWAS members were asked to submit nominees for this council to the executive secretariat by 31 December 2000.
The summit also agreed to fight the proliferation of arms and speed up the establishment of national commissions to strengthen an existing moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of weapons. The heads agreed to the holding of a conference next year in Mali of governments and NGOs on the proliferation of illegal light weapons.
The ECOWAS heads also agreed to step up their fight against trans-border crime, especially drug trafficking and money laundering.
The next ECOWAS summit will take place in Bamako, Mali, in December 2000.
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