What is ECOWAS?
ECOWAS is a regional economic and political union of 15 countries located in West Africa. It was founded on May 28, 1975, with the mission of promoting economic integration across the region.
As of February 2017, ECOWAS has 15 member states. Eight of these are French-speaking (Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Togo, Niger, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Benin), five are English-speaking (Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone) and two are Portuguese-speaking (Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau).
ECOWAS also acts as a peacekeeping force in the region, with member states occasionally sending joint forces to intervene militarily in member states during times of political instability or military coups.
Despite its efforts to maintain peace, democracy and stability, ECOWAS has been dubbed the world's "coup belt". This is also the reason why some countries have had their membership suspended from the bloc.
Mali was suspended by ECOWAS on 30 May 2021, following its second military coup in nine months. Guinea was also disqualified on 8 September 2021, shortly after a military coup took place in the country.
On January 28, 2022, Burkina Faso was also suspended from ECOWAS following a military coup. And most recently, Niger was suspended from economic and trade cooperation with ECOWAS following a military coup earlier this month.
Notably, in addition to the suspension and economic sanctions, the bloc is also threatening to intervene militarily in Niger if President Mohamed Bazoum is not reinstated by the coup group.
Here are some of ECOWAS' past military interventions:
LIBERIA
In 1990, West African leaders sent a neutral military force to Liberia to intervene in the civil war between President Samuel Doe's forces and two rebel factions. This military group was collectively known as the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).
ECOMOG troops in their first military intervention in Liberia. Photo: AP
ECOWAS's military intervention peaked at around 12,000 and the last troops left Liberia in 1999, two years after former rebel leader Charles Taylor was elected President.
West African forces were redeployed at the end of the brutal 14-year conflict, which ended in 2003. About 3,600 of them were later reassigned to a UN peacekeeping operation that lasted until 2018.
SIERRA LEONE
In 1998, the Nigerian-led ECOMOG force intervened in Sierra Leone's civil war to oust the military government and its rebel allies from the capital Freetown and restore President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who had been ousted in a coup a year earlier.
ECOMOG troops on duty in Sierra Leone in 1998. Photo: GI
In 2000, the force withdrew, handing over peacekeeping operations to a United Nations mission. The decades-long war ended in 2002.
GUINEA-BISSAU
In 1999, ECOWAS sent about 600 ECOMOG troops to maintain a peace agreement in Guinea-Bissau, to prevent a coup that was predicted at the time. The force withdrew three months later when the rebel group took power.
ECOWAS deployed a further mission from 2012 to 2020, following another coup, to help prevent the military from interfering in politics and protect officials. It also sent another team of 631 personnel in 2022 to help stabilise the country after a failed coup that year.
IVORY COAST
A West African force was sent to Ivory Coast in 2003 to help French troops monitor a shaky peace deal between rebels and the government. In 2004, they were incorporated into a United Nations peacekeeping force.
MALI
After nearly a decade of relative peace, ECOWAS again sent troops to Mali in 2013 as part of a mission to drive out al-Qaeda-linked militants. As with previous interventions, ECOWAS forces were handed over to a UN peacekeeping mission in late 2013.
However, Mali is now led by a military government again after two consecutive coups in 2021. But this time, ECOWAS did not send troops but only suspended Mali's membership.
Mali is believed to be overrun by militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), whose decades-long insurgency has also spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
GAMBIA
In 2017, ECOWAS sent 7,000 troops to Gambia from neighboring Senegal to force President Yahya Jammeh into exile and hand over the post to Adama Barrow, who had won an earlier election but was usurped by Jammeh.
The last time ECOWAS sent troops to a member state was in Gambia. Photo: AP
The campaign, called Operation Restore Democracy by ECOWAS, was a swift success because Jammeh's security forces offered little resistance, being vastly outnumbered and militarily outgunned.
Hai Anh
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