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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Peacekeeping in Liberia: ECOMOG and the Struggle for Order |
Author: | Hartwig, Charles W. |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | Liberian Studies Journal |
Volume: | 30 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 94-105 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Liberia |
Subjects: | ECOWAS African peacekeeping forces Military, Defense and Arms Inter-African Relations Politics and Government Law, Human Rights and Violence |
Abstract: | In 1990, ECOWAS decided to create a multinational peacekeeping force in an effort to resolve the civil war in Liberia, one of its founding members. With Paul Diehl's (1988) model for successful international peacekeeping in mind, this paper examines this decision to see if it met Diehl's conditions for success. Next, it reviews the action of the UN Security Council in September 1993 to create a supporting UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL), again in the context of Diehl's model. The paper concludes that the original ECOMOG force in Liberia violated nearly all of Diehl's main guidelines (e.g. willingness by third-party States and subnational groups to stop fighting and accept the peacekeeping force, the need for the peacekeeping force to keep the hostile forces geographically apart and for the peacekeepers to be perceived as neutral by all concerned). UNOMIL was intended to monitor the 1993 ceasefire agreement, observe the 1994 elections and coordinate humanitarian aid. The unarmed UN mission was specifically directed to coordinate its activities with ECOMOG, which was however urged to enlarge its component units to include troops from non-ECOWAS African countries. Despite all its problems, the ECOMOG/UNOMIL experiment in conflict resolution would appear a modest success. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |