“The
Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
Mission: ECOWAS Has a Responsibility
to Protect West Africa from Criminals
E.K.Bensah Jr
Back in October
2011, I wrote a piece entitled “Time for ECOWAS to Ratify the Criminal
Investigative Intelligence Bureau”. The idea behind the piece was to argue that
free movement is great for the ECOWAS sub-region, but comes at a cost –
cross-border crime. The news last week of West African “aliens” having been
caught entering Ghana to benefit from National Health Insurance is but one of
many stories of how free movement for ECOWAS citizens, including the provision
to stay ninety days in a country, can be abused. This provision is possible
thanks to the Protocol on Free Movement, Right of Residence and Establishment
which was adopted in 1979. In 1980, ECOWAS members would ratify the first phase
of the Protocol guaranteeing free entry of citizens from member states without
visa for ninety days.
I also touched on
how West African leaders, working through ECOWAS, had made significant strides
on combating drug trafficking, crime; and what I described as “all the
attendant vices associated with un-policed porous borders”
With UEMOA
(comprising eight francophone ECOWAS member states) using ID cards and all
ECOWAS member states having adopted national ID systems, the window of
opportunity must be capitalised upon by member states to really get serious in
securing a sub-region. Although hope springs eternal on this continent, we
cannot live on it indefinitely – simply because it is unsustainable in terms of
deliverables. With specific case to the ID cards, this means that every single
Ghanaian ought to enjoy usage of the national ID cards—and not just a select
few who have received their cards. The cards ought to be used by banks and nation-wide
institutions. When done, this will help in building a database of citizens,
which will also help law enforcement agencies to liaise nationally and
sub-regionally.
Equally important
in my argument was how in October 2008, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
launched a report[1]
that “castigated ECOWAS member states for their apparently-lackadaisical
approach to fighting trans-border crime in the sub-region”. Member states like
Guinea-Bissau had become soft spots for drug traffickers who took advantage of often-corrupt
systems of governance to use that country as a conduit for onward movement of
their drugs.
Regrettably, even
as Guinea-Bisssau is voting in elections at the time of writing, and no less
than 180 ECOWAS election observers are in the country, it cannot shake off the
tag of the “narco-state”, which has ineluctably been associated it.
How
ECOWAS has positively changed the landscape
Almost four years
later, the situation continues to change dramatically as ECOWAS member states have
gotten serious by engaging the UN Office on Drugs and Crime(UNODC) and other UN
agencies, such as the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
(DPKO), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the United Nations Office for West Africa
(UNOWA), and the International
Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) to establish elite
and so-called “Transnational Crime Units” in selected ECOWAS member states[2] to deal
with the canker under the West African Coastal Initiative.
At the sub-regional
level, ECOWAS has a number of structures that are helping rein in what might
otherwise be a chaotic sub-region. These include the ECOWAS Regional Action
Plan on illicit drugs trafficking, organized crime and drug abuse[3]; ECOWAS
Committees of Chiefs of Security Services, and Chiefs of Defence Staff; WAPCCO;
and GIABA.
Backed
by the Canada-based “The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre”, the ECOWAS Committee of
Chiefs of Security Services has assisted ECOWAS since May 2009 to create a
committee that ensures proper communication and coordination efforts with
member states on the police component of the African Standby Force and other
regional security issues. The committee is now funded by the ECOWAS
Commission’s regular annual budget and meets twice a year.
The ECOWAS
Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff—an exclusively military component—reviews
security in the sub-region through quarterly meetings. The ECOWAS agency that
is the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money-Laundering, or GIABA, is
responsible for the prevention and control of Money Laundering and Terrorist
Financing in the West African Sub-Region. Critical to its mandate is the
“improvement of measures and intensifying efforts to combat the laundering of
proceeds of crime in West Africa”.
ECOWAS’s formulation
of a regional response through their Political Declaration of 2005 (that put
forward the idea of establishing a criminal investigative intelligence bureau) has
helped nip the problem in the bud. However, considering the fact that that the
Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau (CIIB) had been proposed as far back
as 2002 by Ghana for a meeting of the INTERPOL-backed West Africa Police Chiefs
Committee (WAPCCO) in Abidjan, the challenge would have been better dealt with
had member states resolved to establish the-said CIIB.
While
ECOWAS community citizens continue to enjoy free movement in the sub-region,
this is a region that has played host to internecine conflicts, such as the
Liberian conflict of 1990 that prompted the intervention of ECOMOG. As I wrote
back in October 2011, “add to that the porous border, the free movement of
mercenaries, coupled with small arms trafficking and the recruitment of
child soldiers and fighters to the cross-border crimes and we have
ourselves a potential powder-keg that needs significant monitoring through
significant systems of intelligence – as proposed by the yet-to-be-ratified
CIIB”.
But that
is not all. In 2012, ECOWAS is confronted by crisis in Northern Mali; piracy;
and a Sahel crisis. These are new elements forcing ECOWAS to take the bull by
the horns on factoring not just the visceral peace and security instruments it
is so used to, but a law-enforcement perspective that is sufficiently holistic
to secure and protect West Africans from criminals and miscreants.
In my 29
February edition for this column, entitled “West Africa Rising…in Regional
Instability?”, I wrote “while the [ECOWAS] Authority has strongly condemned the
MNLA rebellion in Mali and expressed its full support for efforts being exerted
by Mali to ‘defend its territorial integrity’, the sub-regional organisation
has not only called for “an immediate and unconditional cessation of
hostilities by the rebels’’, but also approved the release of three million US
dollars to assist Mali deal with the humanitarian consequences of the
rebellion.”
At
the time of writing, ECOWAS has done more than that—including the ECOWAS Commission urging member states and partners to
“support the government of Mali with logistics and materiel as the country battles to
defend its territorial integrity and restore law and order," the 15 nation ECOWAS said in a
statement.
Furthermore, the ECOWAS Commission has
called on Mali National Liberation Army to observe a ceasefire, and warned
that ECOWAS would take "all necessary measures" to help Mali protect
itself, without giving any further details. According to Reuters, the ECOWAS
statement said it would also launch a mediation process "in the coming
days".
Whither,
again, the future of ECOWAS law enforcement?
You may re-call
that on 4 August, ECOWAS, alongside international partners, established the
so-called Border Information Centres (BIC). While far from a holistic response
to tackling crime and enforcing a rule of law in the sub-region, it
nevertheless is an important step in tackling cross-border corruption and
helping mitigate cross-border crime by providing citizens with transparent ways
of obtaining information on free movement in the sub-region.
Truth be told, I am
not quite sure whether we can yet speak of an ECOWAS law enforcement system, which
is ironic considering how ECOWAS does “peace and security” very well. On peace
and security, ECOWAS has developed fairly elaborate protocols, such as the 1999
ECOWAS protocol for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping
and Security. This enables ECOWAS intervene in conflicts in its member
countries. ECOWAS also has Early Warning mechanism (ECOWARN), as well as a
Mediation and Security Council, which is the key decision-making organ.
In its 2008
Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF)—which seeks to strengthen human security
architecture in the ECOWAS sub-region— ECOWAS has developed a basis for a
holistic and comprehensive action plan in the field of peace and security—but
not on law enforcement. A review might be timely at a time when the sub-region
is rocked by manifold crises—listed above.
Way
Forward for ECOWAS
At a time when
African integration observers are talking of a putative Arab Maghreb
Union(AMU)-ECOWAS-CENSAD free trade area (along the lines of the tripartite
COMESA-EAC-SADC free-trade area), this second FTA is unlikely to go anywhere
quickly without ECOWAS getting very serious on distinguishing between what I
would call “hard”(war; drug-trafficking; human-trafficking) and
“soft”(cross-border and petty crime) conflict. It is very encouraging to read
of Joint Border Patrols in the sub-region—as prescribed by the INTERPOL-backed
West African Police Chiefs Committee.
Further, in response to the piracy threat in the Gulf of Guinea, Benin
and Nigeria are conducting joint maritime patrols. Togo and Ghana are expected
to join in these patrols as well. It is envisioned that the Economic Community
for Central African States (ECCAS) is also conducting joint patrols in the Gulf
of Guinea, with Cameroon, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.
ECOWAS might not
have had the foresight of establishing a West African law enforcement mechanism
(like the EU did with EUROPOL with respect to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992)
the very moment the Treaty of Lagos was revised in 1993 to reflect the current
challenges of ECOWAS, but it can never be too late, I wrote in October 2011, “to
rectify the imperative of a sub-regional police force along the likes of
INTERPOL or EUROPOL”. ECOWAS's imperative and comparative strengths on peace,
security, and conflict prevention ought to give it the necessary impetus to
bring to fruition the belated “ECOWASPOL”/CIIB the sub-region so desperately
needs.
That Guinea is the
only country to have established the francophone counterpart of CIIB—ORIC—in
its country is a woeful indictment of how seriously West African leaders take
the establishment of crime prevention and management in the sub-region. Let us
today help each other put pressure on the leaders of our respective member
states to ratify the 2005 protocol on the criminal investigative intelligence
bureau!
ENDs
In
2009, in his capacity as a “Do More Talk Less Ambassador” of the 42nd
Generation—an NGO that promotes and discusses Pan-Africanism--Emmanuel gave a series of lectures on the
role of ECOWAS and the AU in facilitating a Pan-African identity. Emmanuel
owns "Critiquing Regionalism" (http://www.critiquing-regionalism.org). Established in 2004 as an initiative to
respond to the dearth of knowledge on global regional integration initiatives
worldwide, this non-profit blog features regional integration initiatives on
MERCOSUR/EU/Africa/Asia and many others. You can reach him on ekbensah@ekbensah.net / Mobile: 0268.687.653.
[1]
Online.
Drug trafficking as a security threat in
West Africa. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/drug-trafficking-as-a-security-threat-in-west-africa.html
[2] So far, only four selected countries of Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone are involved.
These countries were chosen as they already have UN presences. The idea is to
also extend it to Guinea-Conakry and other ECOWAS member states over time.
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