DK Jawara: The peacemaker
During the 1980s, The Gambia’s policy in West Africa was marked by the growing concern about the political problems that compounded the economic problems of the region. These problems assumed alarming proportions during the latter-half of the 1980s: relations between The Gambia and Senegal left much to be desired following the disintegration of the Senegambian Confederation; Senegal and Mauritania expelled each other’s citizens and broke off relations; the Tuareg rebels were active in both Mali and Niger; political unrest and student demonstrations became commonplace in Ivory Coast; civil, religious, and student uprisings were shaking the very foundation of Babangida’s military regime in Nigeria. But it was the Liberian civil war, which broke out in 1989, that posed the greatest threat to peace and security of the region.
Although the Ecowas charter provides for mechanisms for conflict resolution, peace keeping, as experienced in the Liberia conflict, was not envisaged. Credit for the peacekeeping initiative must therefore go to the Standing Mediation Committee, which, together with Ecowas, was chaired by the Gambian head of state. The fear that the Liberian conflict might spill over and disturb the security of the entire region prompted the decision of the Standing Mediation Committee to mediate in the conflict. Although the decision was taken during President Jawara’s absence from Banjul, the actual operations were spearheaded by him. He cut short his foreign visit and returned to Banjul to head the Ecowas peace-making activities. He first sent Abbas Bundu, the executive secretary of Ecowas, to Liberia in June 1990. Mr Bundu’s task included the preparation of the ground for the community’s mediation team, and reporting to the Committee. His dispatch to Liberia was followed by a series of meetings convened by the Standing Committee and other agencies such as the Inter-Faith Committee of Liberian Church leaders. The failure of these mediation efforts made other options, such as peacekeeping, more attractive.
In July 1990, an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the member-states of the Standing Committee was convened in Banjul to work out modalities for a ceasefire. It was proposed to send a monitoring or a peacekeeping force to Liberia, obtain President Doe’s resignation, appoint an interim government, and prepare for general elections. Meanwhile fighting continued, with President Doe refusing to step down. Charles Taylor, leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), rejected the peacekeeping proposal and threatened that any peacekeeping force would be regarded as an invading force and would be dealt with as such.
The ministerial meeting was followed by a summit meeting, from 6-7 August, of the five member-states of the Mediation Committee (The Gambia, chair, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, and Togo). Also, present at the summit, were Sierra Leone and Guinea. After two days of closed consultation, the heads of state decided to send peacekeeping forces to Liberia. As we have seen, this option was already on the cards; the Banjul summit only confirmed it. According to President Jawara, the force would be constituted “for the purpose of keeping the peace, restoring law and order, and ensuring that the cease-fire is respected.” He insisted that the force was not an invading force, but a humanitarian one, and that it was to help prepare Liberia for a return to peace and democracy. He therefore appealed to all the parties to the conflict to cooperate with the force and to accept the Ecowas peace proposal.
Accordingly, the peacekeeping force, Ecomog (Ecowas Ceasefire Monitoring Group) would draw on soldiers from The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, and Mali (the five Committee members) as well as from Sierra Leone and Guinea. The 2,500 strong force, under the command of a Ghanaian officer, arrived in Monrovia by sea on 24th August, 1990.
A crucial part of the Banjul peace package was the prescription that an interim government be established. Such an administration would be made up of a national conference of all Liberian political parties and other interested groups. The Ecowas formula, however, had no place for Doe, the incumbent president, and Taylor, leader of the NPFL, and Johnson, commander of a breakaway faction, in the interim government. The all-party conference, convened in Banjul in August, named an interim government headed by Amos Sawyer. Although none of the warring factions was given a place in the government, they were given places in the interim parliament. It was agreed to give Taylor’s NPFL six seats in the interim legislative assembly which would rule for a year before elections were held. It was also agreed to give Prince Johnson four seats in the same assembly.
As soon as the Banjul proposal was published, the National Patriotic Front of Charles Taylor announced its opposition to the arrangement. A visiting delegation of the Front to Banjul called on the Mediation Committee to include its leader, Taylor, in the interim government, claiming that the Front had effective control of the country and that ignoring this reality would pose “serious dangers to peace and stability” in Liberia. The Front delegation advised Jawara to hold more meetings with other warring factions before Ecowas took any steps. The August conference in Banjul also agreed to send two missions, one to Liberia to discuss the proposals with whichever warring faction was willing to listen; the other to West African capitals for consultation with the governments in the region to promote the “objective of restoring normal life to Liberia within the shortest possible time.”
The problem with the mission to visit Liberia was that, as fighting between factions grew fiercer, there was no clear place into which it could step. However, President Jawara led the second mission to West African capitals in September. He visited Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, to inform leaders of these countries of the decision of the Standing Committee to send a peace- keeping force, and to urged them to contribute towards the US$50 million required for the Ecowas peace plan. He reported at the end of his “shuttle” mission that he was assured of the solidarity of the governments of the region.
Taylor, who controlled 90 per cent of Liberian territory and had regular arms supplies flown in from Burkina Faso, believed that he had little or no need of an agreement to secure victory.
Thus, President Jawara reported, at the end of his tour of West African capital cities in September, that he was assured of cooperation in all the places he had visited except in Burkina Faso, where he had seen evidence of Burkinabé support for Charles Taylor. Jawara urged the Burkinabé leader, Campaoré, to use his influence on Charles Taylor so that Taylor would meet the delegation sent by the All Party Conference held earlier in Banjul. Although Campaoré agreed to talk to Taylor, he insisted on the convening of a special Ecowas summit. The call for a special summit was also echoed by the Ivorian leader, Houphouêt Boigny, who proposed that the summit be convened in October. According to Jawara, the idea of a summit had to be abandoned because of the lack of support and of enough time for preparation. Instead, a ministerial meeting was convened in Banjul from 22nd to 23rd October and was chaired by Omar Sey. The meeting successfully managed to have two of the warring factions, the armed forces of Liberia and the rebel group led by Prince Johnson to sign a truce. Charles Taylor’s group did not attend. According to the Gambian minister, Taylor’s intransigence made the community all the more determined to end the carnage and mayhem in Liberia. Mr Sey also scolded the international community for doing very little to ease the food and refugee problem in Liberia, adding that, unless urgent assistance was secured, a “catastrophe of monumental proportions would be in our hands.”
After intensive diplomatic and military efforts, including a visit by an Ecowas delegation to Libya, Liberian warring factions, including the National Patriotic Front, signed a ceasefire agreement at an extraordinary summit conference on Liberia held in the Malian capital, Bamako, on November 28. President Jawara, the chairman of Ecowas, and “arranger of the talks” described the Bamako agreement between the warring factions as a major breakthrough, although he conceded that there was a lot more to do. Charles Taylor, whose forces controlled most of the country, told reporters that he “was very happy that finally the Liberian people have within their reach the chance of a lasting peace and a just settlement of the crises.”
Although the cease-fire agreement of November 1990 lasted for less than three months, it brought about a degree of normality in Liberia and permitted Ecomog soldiers to take up strategic positions in Monrovia. The rest is history.
It is clear from our account of these events that The Gambia played a central role in the Ecowas initiative. As the chair of the group, The Gambia was the centre of the peacekeeping activities during the first phase of the Liberian conflict. Most meetings took place in Banjul, and most of the high level inter-governmental consultations on Liberia were carried out by the Gambian head of state and his foreign minister. President Jawara’s effort within the Standing Committee, led to the Bamako Agreement which brought about a degree of normalcy in Liberia and permitted the attenuation hostilities.
