Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping

Lessons o f Liberia ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping 1 Long-standing ethnic, geographical, and religious conflicts continue to ravage significant sections of the developing world. Wars in Cambodia, Liberia, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Rwanda have inflicted massive human suffering and economic destruction . Other countries, including Iraq, Nigeria, Burundi, and several former Soviet republics may soon erupt into large-scale violence.' Statesoften lack adequate military and police forces to control many of these conflicts. Western nations, especially since the recent intervention in Somalia, hesitate to help police conflicts which do not threaten their own vital interests. The West and the United Nations have argued that subregional organizations and individual states should assume increasing security responsibilities. Yet when Boutros Boutros-Ghali,Secretary-Generalof the United Nations, recently called upon sixty non-African states to form a standby peacekeeping force for Burundi, only one state (Bangladesh)agreed. If individual states lack the capability and if Western states lack the willingness to control third-world conflicts, what other options exist? This article examines the possible effectivenessof subregional military groupings by analyzing ECOMOG (EconomicCommunity of West African StatesCease-fireMonitoring Group), a combined West African force, in the Liberian conflict of 1989-96. Advocatesof subregionalforces argue that these groupings, when compared to nonregional intervenors, have both political and military advantages.' Subregional forces understand the conflict better, enjoy greater political accepHerbert Howe is Research Professor of African Politics at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. The author is grateful to those West Africans and Americans who offered valuable assistance. Among those were Ambassador Herman Cohen, General John Inienger, Kathleen List, Anthony Marley, Timothy Sisk, Stephen Stedman, Ambassador Andrew Steigman, Ambassador William Twaddell, and Jennifer Windsor. The author's parents, Professors Herbert and Evelyn Howe, once again strove to impart writing skills to their son. 1. Several writers predict that a combination of political, cultural, economic, and environmental reasons foretell a near-apocalyptic, or at least highy conflictual, future for much of Africa. See Samuel E Huntington, "Clash Of Cultures," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72,No. 3 (Summer 1993),pp. 4-34; and Robert Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 273, No. 2 (February 1994). A reioinder to Kaplan is Carol Lancaster, "The Coming Anarchy," CSlS Africu Notes, No. 163 (August 1994). 2. For a discussion of the uossible advantages of subregional forces,see Gareth Evans, Cooperating - " Y For Peace (Canberra: Allen and Unwin, 1994). International Security, Vol. 21,No. 3 (Winter 1996/97), pp. 145-176 0 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 145 International Security 21:3 1 146 tance by the combatants, will demonstrate a stronger and more lasting commitment , and can deploy relevant (and often cheaper) equipment and personnel . This article, by using ECOMOG’s six-year Liberian involvement, disputes these claims and argues that an inadequate peacekeeping force may instead prolong a war and weaken regional stability.The lessons of ECOMOG, generally negative, are important for any future subregional force. ECOMOG entered strife-torn Liberia in late August 1990.Initially composed of soldiers from five West African states, ECOMOG has lost about seven hundred men in combat while trying to establish a cease-fire. Its major opponent has been the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)headed by Charles Taylor.Acease-fireagreement in August 1995,”the Abuja Agreement,”brought together all major combatants into a transitional government. ECOMOG still remained in Liberia in mid-1996, but fighting between various factions prevented ECOMOG from having a cease-fire to monitor. The Liberian conflict is symptomatic of a growing number of third-world conflicts in countries where state legitimacy has eroded or disappeared, where poorly disciplined insurgencies of dispossessed and alienated rural youth acquire cheap modern weaponry and, with the aid of foreign business interests, loot the nation and rob it of its chances for development. Liberia’s struggle illustrates the need for, but also the difficulties facing, foreign intervention forces. While the Liberian war reflects several common problems, ECOMOG’s intervention established several important precedents. ECOMOG became the first subregional military force in the third world since the end of the Cold War, and the first subregional military force with whom the United Nations...