“The
Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
Time for ECOWAS to Ratify the
Criminal Investigative Intelligence Bureau!
E.K.Bensah Jr
Central to any
regional integration arrangement is what most well-known integration schemes,
like the EU, call four freedoms – that of movement; capital; goods; and
services. With these come security-related challenges that call into question
the need to strengthen intelligence of the sub-region. 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.
It was not too long
ago when the West African sub-region became a by-word for drug trafficking;
crime; and all the attendant vices associated with un-policed porous borders.
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.
Three years later,
the situation has changed dramatically as ECOWAS member states got serious by
engaging the 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.
That ECOWAS has formulated
a regional response through their Political Declaration of 2005 (that put
forward the idea of establishing a criminal investigative intelligence bureau) has
also helped to nip the problem in the bud. Truth be told, 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.
It goes
without saying that while ECOWAS community citizens 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.
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.
Whither
the future of ECOWAS law enforcement?
On 4 August,
ECOWAS, alongside international partners, established the so-called Border
Information Centres (BIC). While this is 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.
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”.
In the final
analysis, although 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, it can
never be too late 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.
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.
[3] Online. http://www.unodc.org/westandcentralafrica/en/ecowasresponseactionplan.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment