ECOWAS IN MALI; Lessons learnt from 2012 Intervention

Africa has a long way to go in respecting democracy, perhaps to start with peaceful demonstrations. Even at a time when regional integration is advancing in Africa, African people need to respect human rights and freedoms. It was a fatal move to release anti-terrorist forces to peaceful demonstrators on the streets of Mali on July 10th, killing 11 people thus raising the question on the definition of a terrorist. Should demonstrators be considered as terrorists when they have not shown any act of terrorism? And isn’t freedom of speech, expression, and press a constitutional right at all? Perhaps if the constitution is to be respected, then it has to be, as a whole, and the limitation of human rights and freedoms should perhaps be re-defined in the African context.

Mali is a strategic member State for ECOWAS as it borders the West African region on the South and Northern Africa on the North. Therefore, a crisis in Mali is a crisis for ECOWAS as evidenced with the Maghreb terrorist group continuing to supply arms to Boko Haram in Nigeria and host Al-Qaeda, a group linked to June 11 Burkina Faso-Cote D’Ivore border attack. The country acts as a bridge to North and West Africa and is surrounded by the major actors of regional integration in the region. Therefore, the current crisis disturbed the ECOWAS States forcing them to call for an intervention. However, as Dominic Offei, a Ghanaian puts it, in a recent interview with Matters Governance,  ECOWAS should learn to be proactive instead of reactive on its interventions as was evident in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau (ECOMOG) with the exception of the Gambia where it intervened before lives were lost.

In the wake of the 2012 Mali crisis, the UN Security Council authorized a peace mission that saw ECOWAS deploy African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) to help cool down the situation. To such effect, ECOWAS decided to establish the West African Electoral Commission, a supranational body over the national electoral bodies to deal with disputed elections among its member States, a factor that was and is still a major source of conflicts in the region. However, as many other programs and protocols in African regional economic communities, it was never implemented. Nevertheless, the people of west Africa feel that there is still the possibility of its success if member States decide to implement it. As Mr. Offei puts it, the West African Senior School Examination (WASSE), a standardized exam for secondary education administered by West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in West African English Speaking countries established in 1952 has had its success story and thus, the electoral body could too in its mandate to standardize member State national elections.

 

ECOWAS revised its treaty in 1991 to consider the regionals' peace and security and perhaps move its focus to the 'ECOWAS of People' rather than 'ECOWAS of the States'. Therefore, the community’s many policies on empowering member States should be implemented to avoid the eruption of wars, coups, and conflicts in the region but that won’t be enough to move the community’s focus towards people as that will require people economic and social empowerment. Despite the opinion that the root cause of the Mali crisis is linked to the current presidents’ inability to fight corruption, improve the economic status of the country and fight jihadist revolts in the North, Mr. Offei has a different opinion. He feels that the 1960 deliberate move to ignore the North (which led to marginalization and consequently discrimination of the region in terms of economic development) is a major contributing factor to the recurrent Mali crisis..

 From the point of international law, a conflict ends when a balance of power has been determined and the two sides agreed to put it to an end, otherwise, that did not happen in Mali when the government was transitioned into a unity government in the return of democracy in 2013 and June 5th Movement proved so.  Therefore, the current ECOWAS intervention with the appointment of lead mediator ex-president Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has to yield different results if the Mali crisis has to end. At least, despite the nullification of 31 parliamentarian seats and the formation of the Unity government, the economic, social, and political programs have to be more inclusive of the North. Affirmative actions have to be taken into account to instil a feeling of belonging to the people of North.

Although the ECOWAS protocol of Democracy and Good Governance deny the community the right to remove the constitutionally elected president from power unless the country goes through democratic elections, its presence in Mali portrays the critical role it plays in maintaining peace and security in the region and that peace should be inclusive. Despite the accusations made on the ECOWAS Heads of State of conspiring with the Malian president to remain in power, their hands are tied by the communitys' Treaty and protocols not to intervene on matters of national sovereignty, which leaves the protestors angrier and makes mediations harder. However, ECOWAS should ensure the political crisis does not worsen the regional humanitarian crisis already in place.

  !I do not own the right to photos used in this blog