ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS said Sunday that the impending departure of its three member states led by military juntas is disheartening after a nearly year-long process of mediation to stem the group’s unprecedented disintegration. prevent.
For the first time in the 15-nation bloc’s nearly 50-year existence, the military juntas of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso announced in January that they had decided to leave ECOWAS, accusing the country of “inhumane and irresponsible ” coup-related sanctions and for their failure to resolve their internal security crises.
The three coup-hit countries have largely rebuffed ECOWAS’s attempts to reverse their withdrawal. They have started thinking about how to issue travel documents separately from ECOWAS and are forming their own alliance. The year-long process of their departure is expected to be completed in January.
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At the summit of regional heads of state in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Omar Alieu Touray, chairman of the ECOWAS Commission, praised the efforts of the bloc’s envoys to resolve the crisis.
“These efforts underscore your collective commitment to maintaining peace and unity in our region,” Touray said.
As West Africa’s highest political authority since its founding in 1975, such divisions are ECOWAS’s biggest challenge since its founding, said Babacar Ndiaye, senior fellow at the Senegal-based Timbuktu Institute for Peace Studies.
The chances that ECOWAS will bring the three countries back into its fold are slim, especially as the bloc wants a quick return to democracy, which the juntas have not committed to, said Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. Allowing the juntas to remain in power “could risk further regional fragmentation,” while recognizing them as legitimate authorities “would represent a serious departure from the founding principles of ECOWAS,” Durmaz said.
The regional bloc also failed to manage the situation in the best possible way, he said.
“The bloc’s inconsistent responses to coups in the region have given the impression that its position is more influenced by the political ambitions of member states than by its founding principles of promoting democratic governance,” Durmaz said.
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Associated Press journalist Baba Ahmed from Bamako, Mali, contributed.
