| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
ABUJA, May 10 (AFP) - The bloody overthrow of Guinea-Bissau's
head of state, just weeks after the killing of the
president of Niger, has dealt another blow to the credibility
of the regional bloc ECOWAS, diplomats and analysts
said Monday.
President Joao Bernado Vieira was forced out of office
Friday after two days of fighting between his troops
and forces loyal to army commander General Ansumane
Mane.
The ouster, in which at least 80 people were killed
and more than 250 wounded, came six months after Vieira
and Mane signed a peace accord negotiated by the west
African regional body, the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS).
ECOWAS, formed in 1975, trumpeted that pact as a
sign that the troubled region was on the way to stability
after years of bloody wars.
But since then, fighting has renewed in Sierra Leone,
as well as Guinea-Bissau, and last month the president
of the republic of Niger, another of ECOWAS's 16 member
countries, was shot dead in a coup.
The Guinea-Bissau development was, however, the biggest
reverse for ECOWAS, according to diplomats and officials
here.
"It is a slap in the face for ECOWAS,"
said a western diplomat who asked not to be identified.
ECOWAS had negotiated the accord, worked hard to
win support, and sent more than 700 troops to back
the agreement, he said.
"This is undoubtedly going to complicate relations
between ECOWAS and the new government."
Guinea-Bissau's Prime Minister Francisco Fadul, head
of a national unity government set up under the Abuja
accord and still in place, said shortly after the coup
that there was not much left for the ECOMOG troops
to do since there was "no longer anybody to separate".
ECOWAS, primarily an economic body which intervened
militarily in the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra
Leone, itself admits there is little it can do if leaders
of member countries flout regional agreements.
ECOWAS is set up as a consensus-based body with few
punitive powers.
"The problem is with the people who decided
to oust Vieira. They signed an agreement last year
and have violated the agreement. It suggests they cannot
be trusted," ECOWAS spokeswoman Adrienne Diop
said.
What can now be done is not certain, she said. Discussions
were taking place in Lome about the ECOWAS response.
"It certainly is a disappointment. It is sad.
It is a big disappointment for ECOWAS," Diop
said.
"We have tried to solve things in a peaceful
manner. Elections were due in November. They could
have waited to change the government through elections.
There was no point to this bloodshed.
"It undermines the sub-region," she added.
According to a diplomat from west Africa, long versed
in its complicated internal relations, the will does
not exist in the region to tackle an endless number
of problems.
This means that with Nigeria, west Africa's main
power, already stretched by its engagement in ECOMOG
peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, leaders such as Mane
feel free to flout ECOWAS agreements in their countries,
he said.
On Monday, Major Zamora Induta, a spokesman for the
junta in Guinea-Bissau said the former parliamentary
speaker, Malam Bacai Sanha would be named interim head
of state to replace Vieira.
Vieira has asked for asylum in Portugal following
the coup. Induta denied that the coup meant the military
had rejected the Abuja accord. "Quite simply,
we are replacing one of the interlocutors," he
said.
====== GBissau-ECOWAS update at May 10 8:42 PDT
====== In Benin, the government decided in special
session on Monday that it will pull its 145 soldiers
in the ECOMOG force out of Guinea-Bissau out "as
swiftly as possible", an official statement said.
The government said it "strongly deplored how
the national reconcilation process in this brother
country, backed by the international community, was
brutally cut short by the coup d'etat by the military
junta."
Under the circumstances, however, the Cotonou authorities
had decided that the "situation and objective
reasons for maintaining the Beninese contingent in
Guinea-Bissau have radically changed and ... rendered
pointless the ECOMOG buffer force and security mission".
------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 16:40:25 -0400 (EDT) From: aadinar@sas.upenn.edu (Ali B. Ali-Dinar) Subject: ECOWAS credibility dented in Guinea-Bissau (fwd)
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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