Bid to blacklist Niger fails

West African foreign ministers discussing regional insecurity issues have declined to back an earlier call by Benin, Mali and Sierra Leone to deny recognition to the new military administration in Niger led by Major Daouda Wanke, news reports said.

In their final communique, the 16 ministers of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, said on Tuesday there was "need for an independent committee of enquiry that would look into the death of President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara".

This was a milder version of an earlier draft that referred to
Mainassara's death as an "assassination", AFP reported. Mainassara was shot dead by members of his presidential guard on 9 April.

The foreign ministers also agreed to recommend the withdrawal of ECOMOG peacekeepers from Guinea Bissau even though, according to AFP, that country's foreign minister, Hilia Gomes Barbes called for the maintenance of the troops.

Some 600 ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group) troops from Gambia, Niger, Benin and Togo were sent to Guinea Bissau earlier this year to monitor a peace agreement between then president Joao Bernardo Vieira and a Military Junta comprising armed forces mutineers.

After the Military Junta overthrew Vieira on 7 May, critics began querying the need for ECOMOG troops in the country.

However, the agreement also provided for the deployment of ECOMOG troops along the border with Senegal to prevent any infiltrations into southern Senegal by separatist guerrillas that might be based in Guinea Bissau.