Conflict management and resolution in West Africa : the case of ECOMOG in Liberia (1989-1997)

Abstract

This study examines and analyses the causes of the civil war in Liberia in West Africa from 1989 to 1997. The study argues that intervention of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia, through the ECOWAS Cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), was most justified. It explains how ECOMOG helped to resolve the conflict. Finally, it speculates on the future of ECOMOG and on the prospects of having it as a model for other sub-regions in Africa and the world at large. The data for this analysis come from mainly written works on the subject matter, such as literature on· issues of conflict in general, material on the causes of the Liberian civil war, and on the role played by ECOMOG in it in order to bring it to an end. An examination of the political history of Liberia shows that ethnicity accounts, more than any other thing, for the outbreak of the civil war and its deterioration into the total collapse of the Liberian state. The study also finds out that ECOMOG, although a strange form of peacekeeping, was the best to have happened to Liberia. Nonetheless, it finds out that ECOMOG lacked certain facilities that had complicated its operations in Liberia. For a possible replication of the ECOMOG experience in Liberia, the study suggests how the weaknesses and strengths of ECOMOG's involvement in Liberia can be avoided and adopted respectively.