Senegal: ECOWAS defense, foreign ministers discuss conflict resolution Dakar Le Soleil (Internet Version-WWW) in French 23 Jul 03 LE SOLEIL Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Journal Code: 4668 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT Document Type: Daily Report; News Word Count: 704 Article by I.K. Ndiaye:"Conflict prevention--new paths under exploration" Senegalese Armed Forces Minister Becaye Diop described the recent meeting of the Dakar CESA (expansion unknown) as "a platform of reflection on the establishment of a security structure in the ECOWAS sub-region, particularly on matters concerning conflict management. To the minister, the location of the crises in the interior of states and the high degree of the violence involved make it "difficult to identify a unique cause for them or find simple solutions to the problems posed." A melting pot of intermingling populations, West Africa has experienced a rift that "has brought about real changes in geographical, cultural, and human groupings that, in the past, used to be homogeneous." Post-Cold War conflicts and balkanization have given rise to the disintegration of west Africa. The consequences of these conflicts are that they render the achievement of the sub-regional integration and the creation of the African Union difficult," the minister regretted. Fortified by this observation, the minister noted, the ECOWAS "has elaborated a joint security structure based on transparency, consultation, good governance, and the protection of human life." These conflicts have drawn "a vicious circle of violence in the countries, creating 3 million refugees in their wake," according to Dr Ibn Chambas (the executive secretary of ECOWAS). He then enumerated the typical causes of conflicts: religion, ethnicity, issues of identity, independence and autonomy, and inter-community issues...According to Dr Chambas, the new wars present specific factors: military intervention, bad governance, and unfair development... Since the end of the1980's, the sub-regional organization has adapted itself to the situation by acquiring for itself a whole arsenal of judicial structures and political and military institutions. In turns, the leaders of the sub-region ratified the draft agreement on non-aggression in 1978, the one on mutual assistance and defense issues in 1981, and the ones on the prevention, management, and settlement of conflicts, and peacekeeping and security in 1999. At the same time, the ECOWAS forces intervened twice in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, and Cote d'Ivoire. These actions have ended up giving the ECOWAS a reputation of "being permanently in search for the ways and means of ensuring a lasting development," Becaye Diop emphasized. He however, minimized the successes achieved because of the fact that the "interventions did not have the same positive results and that there is the need for a better participation of member states." This damper, however, "shows that there are political obstacles and controversies likely to hamper this laudable security and peace-keeping venture." Dr Monde Muyangwa, dean of the CESA emphasized the "lack of an operational policy of the ECOWAS." Dr Muyangwa expressed her wish for a "political commitment of the ECOWAS that must maintain its economic goal. According to Mrs Muyangwa, the crisis could have been caused by the "lack of a mechanism for preventing them." To this end, she suggested the use of other prevention links or tools with the civil society and the academy in the west African subregion. The CESA meeting, which brings together foreign and defense ministers, chiefs of defense staff, ECOWAS leaders, representatives of the United Nations, and high ranking military officers from Europe and the United States, has been described by the Senegalese minister as an efficient declension of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) which integrates the initiative for peace and security." However, for Africa to be able to handle all the aspects of a conflict, the minister suggested that greater emphasis should be laid on the means for the prevention, management, and settlement of conflicts, the search for peace, peacekeeping and imposition, reconciliation, construction and reconstruction after a conflict, and fighting the proliferation of light weapons and land mines."