ECOWAS Standby Force Enters Guinea-Bissau,& Why the Ministry of Regional Integration Must Do More(1)

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”:
By E.K.Bensah Jr
What does regional integration mean to you? Is it the same as regional cooperation or do you find it very different twins of the same subset of international relations? Let's even forget the fact that some academics consider regional integration as an instance of multilateral cooperation, and let's focus more on the generics.

When some of us bang on every single day about ECOWAS and/or the AU, how does that resonate with you? I would have thought these are some of the themes and questions the Ministry of Regional Integration might have come up when they launched May as Regional Integration Month a few weeks ago. Deep down, I knew these kinds of questions would never come up.

We are literally three days away from celebration of AU day, and 28 May (ECOWAS Day) is drawing close with increasing celerity, yet the ministry has made scant public efforts to remind Ghanaians about the importance of regional integration, ECOWAS, and/or the AU. An article in one or two of the dailies is woefully inadequate for a nation which first President Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah is an institution for the promulgation of Pan-Africanism.

If we can forget the controversies surrounding Nkrumah for a second and focus on how he, alongside then-Egyptian President Nasser and then-President of Ethiopia Haile Selasi played critical and instrumental roles in the establishment of the OAU, we can probably appreciate the necessity of doing more than paying lip-service to what African policy-makers like to call African integration.

ECOMIB and Guinea-Bissau
As I write this, ECOWAS troops have been in Guinea-Bissau for less than week. As scheduled, the ECOWAS Standby Force—comprising troops from Nigeria; Burkina Faso; Togo and Senegal—arrived in the West African country on 18 May-to little fanfare, at least in Ghana. I would like to think that just because Ghanaian troops were not involved did not preclude the necessity of reporting on it. We would be sure to read it culled from the BBC or AP no doubt the following day in Daily Graphic and the other Ghanaian dailies.

In my view, Guinea-Bissau is the exception that proves the rule that West Africa is one, fine, complicated sub-region. Here you have a country dubbed as a narco-state that is virtually singled out by its language of Portuguese in the second regional economic community in West Africa--UEMOA, which itself has historical ties to France.

Odd one out doesn't quite cut it either, for it also belongs to the Portugal-based Community of Portuguese Language Countries, which comprises Portugal's former colonies in Africa. Never mind that Portugal is part of the PIGS countries which economy is not doing so great in Europe!

To think that a few weeks ago, Portugal claimed that the CPLP reserved the right to call for intervention from the Security Council is all well and good, but seems to reflect a more stylistic approach to any resolution of the crisis in Guinea-Bissau than substance, for whether Portugal likes it or not, the former remains a member of ECOWAS, and it is that bloc that is and was that bloc that was likely to power-broker any solution to the coup!

According to the Pan-African News Agency (PANA), Burkina Faso will become the first troop contributing nation to deploy to the ECOWAS Mission in Guinea-Bissau (ECOMIB) when the first batch of its 170-member Formed Police Unit (FPU) lands in Bissau.

It continues that apart from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and Togo are also expected to contribute to the 629-strong regional force, which will replace Angolan troops.

As the Angolan security mission in Guinea-Bissau agrees to fully-withdraw by 30 May, ECOWAS defence chiefs ended their one-day meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, Monday 14 May with an agreement to begin the deployment Friday (18 May)

Among its functions, ECOMIB will seek to support the restoration of constitutional rule, provide security for VIPs and guarantee the freedom of movement of humanitarian agencies in the country, ahead of the planned Security Sector Reform in that country.

The Abuja-based ECOWAS Commission has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the troop contributing countries, which together will provide, among others, police units, motorized and engineering construction units as well as a level 2 hospital supports.

The ECOMIB Mission comes at a time when at their summits in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on 26 April and Dakar, Senegal, on 3 May, West African leaders authorized the deployment of contingents of the ECOWAS Standby Force to both Guinea-Bissau and Mali.

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 [email protected] / Mobile: 0268.687.653.