ECOMOG is a West African multilateral armed force established by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The name is an abbreviation of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group. ECOMOG is not a standing army, but a formal arrangement for separate armies to work together, along similar lines to NATO. Its backbone is Nigerian armed forces and financial resources, with sub-battalion strength units contributed by other ECOWAS members - Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Gambia.

History

Nigeria, Ghana and other ECOWAS members agreed a Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 29 May 1989. Among other security measures, this was to create an Allied Armed Force of the Community (AAFC) as needed.

Anglophone ECOWAS members established ECOMOG in 1990 to intervene in the civil war in Liberia (1989-1996). Western nations had declined to intervene, and the Francophone ECOWAS members were opposed to mobilising the AAFC under the previous year's protocol. Unlike the typical UN mission of its day, ECOMOG's first deployment entailed fighting its way into a many-sided civil war, in an attempt to forcibly hold the warring factions apart.

ECOMOG has since acted to control conflict in other cases:

• 1997 - Sierra Leone
• 1999 - Guinea-Bissau
• 1999 - Sierra Leone
• 2001 - Guinea-Bissau/Liberia border

Wider influence

Within Africa, ECOMOG represents the first credible attempt at a regional security initiative since the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) tried to established an 'Inter-African Force' to intervene in Chad in 1981. As such it is closely followed by other African states, which recognize the potential social and economic benefits of locally-guaranteed regional stability.

With the massive increase in the commitments of the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations following the end of the Cold War, and particularly since NATO's independent action in Kosovo in 1999, pressure has developed within UN and US policy circles for more security measures to be 'contracted out' to sub-UN regional organisations. Despite the preponderance of Nigerian influence, ECOMOG is often discussed as an early example of the type of sub-regional, multilateral security forces that are widely expected to have to take up the responsibility for missions that would once have been run by the UN.

References

• Mitikishe Maxwell Khobe, The Evolution and Conduct of ECOMOG Operations in West Africa, in Monograph No.44, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa [1]
• BBC News Online - Profile: ECOMOG [2]

External links

• Human Rights Watch assessment of ECOMOG's Liberia intervention
• ECOMOG: A Model for Africa? South African ISS paper
• ECOMOG: Peacekeeper or Participant? BBC News story