1. Home
  2. Africa
  3. West Africa

ECOWAS summit focuses on conflict in West Africa

ECOWAS Executive-Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas. IRIN
Mohamed Ibn Chambas Executive Secretary ECOWAS
West African leaders will focus on efforts to resolve a string of conflicts in the region when they meet in the Ghanaian capital Accra for their annual summit on Friday. They are also expected confirm Ghanaian President John Kufuor as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for a further year. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of ECOWAS, told IRIN on Thursday that leaders of the 15-nation regional organisation would focus on moves to prevent a fragile peace agreement in Cote d'Ivoire from crumbling away, the consolidation of peace in Liberia and moves to restore Guinea-Bissau to democracy following a bloodless coup there in September. Chambas said the heads of state would seek to thrash out a deal that would lead to the early return of rebels occupying the north of Cote d'Ivoire to a broad-based government of national reconciliation. The rebels, who are officially known as "The New Forces," walked out in September, protesting that President Laurent Gbagbo was failing to implement fully a French-brokered peace agreement signed in January. Gbagbo is expected to attend the Accra summit, and rebel officials in the New Forces stronghold of Bouake said rebel leader Guillaume Soro had been invited to be present in Accra on the sidelines of the summit. Chambas said once the rebels returned to government, the parties would develop a timetable for the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement. He urged the United Nations to take over the prime responsibility for peacekeeping in Cote d'Ivoire as the rebels move towards the start of a long delayed disarmament process. "We would like the UN to take over as quickly as possible and hopefully in the first quarter of the new year. An evaluation mission report on Cote d'Ivoire is due to the UN Security Council on January 10, 2004. We hope that after the submission of that report, the Council will authorise the mission," Chambas told IRIN. France currently has 4,000 peacekeeping troops in Cote d'Ivoire, while five ECOWAS member states, Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal and Togo have a further 1,400. The West African force was recently strengthened with 90 gendarmes sent to guarantee the security of rebel ministers following their hoped-for return to government. ECOWAS hopes that if the Security Council approves the sending of UN peacekeepers to Cote d'Ivoire, the West African troops already there will become part of the blue helmeted force. A similar move took place in Liberia earlier this year. ECOWAS forces sent to the capital Monrovia in August became part of a larger UN force in October. The European Union last week agreed to provide 12 million euros (US$14 million) to support the West African peacekeepers in Cote d'Ivoire until their anticipated takeover by the United Nations. Military sources in Cote d'Ivoire said about 10,000 peacekeepers would be needed to supervise the disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation process properly - double the number there at present. Chambas said Liberia, where the United Nations was recently forced to suspend its disarmament programme for a month because of insufficient numbers of peacekeepers on the ground, would also figure prominently on the summit agenda. So too would Guinea-Bissau, where elected president Kumba Yala was removed by a bloodless coup in September. The coup was initially condemned overseas, but it was greeted with widespread relief at home because Kumba Yala had led the former Portuguese colony into political chaos and bankruptcy. He was replaced by a broad-based civilian administration which has called parliamentary elections for March 28. "Guinea Bissau also continues to be prominent on the agenda. It is making good progress in its transition to democracy," Chambas said. "We need to encourage it. More importantly, the international community needs to be urged to mobilise financial resources for the transistion process." The ECOWAS executive secretary said that following the failure to find another suitable candidate, the Ghanaian president would remain as chairman as ECOWAS for a further year. "Kufuor will take over from Kufuor as ECOWAS Chairman," he told IRIN. Officials in the the Ghanaian Presidency had earlier indicated that Kufuor was not keen to serve a second term as ECOWAS Chairman, since he would be hitting the campaign trail soon to seek a second four-year term as head of state in presidential elections due in December 2004. However, Kufuor has been widely praised for hosting the peace conference that finally ended Liberia's 14-year civil war and for his efforts to try and heal the rift between Gbagbo and the rebels in Cote d'Ivoire. "Based on the work that he has done over the past year and also based on peer review from his colleague heads of state, the consensus is emerging that he should carry on and I know that he will be up to the task of a second term," Chambas said.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

Share this article

Get the day’s top headlines in your inbox every morning

Starting at just $5 a month, you can become a member of The New Humanitarian and receive our premium newsletter, DAWNS Digest.

DAWNS Digest has been the trusted essential morning read for global aid and foreign policy professionals for more than 10 years.

Government, media, global governance organisations, NGOs, academics, and more subscribe to DAWNS to receive the day’s top global headlines of news and analysis in their inboxes every weekday morning.

It’s the perfect way to start your day.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian today and you’ll automatically be subscribed to DAWNS Digest – free of charge.

Become a member of The New Humanitarian

Support our journalism and become more involved in our community. Help us deliver informative, accessible, independent journalism that you can trust and provides accountability to the millions of people affected by crises worldwide.

Join