One-time Senator of River Gee County, Conmany B. Wesseh, says Liberia has championed and helped to midwife almost all of the world’s iconic peace, unity and justice organizations, lest to mention lately the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which clocked 49 on May 28, 2024.
The former River Gee Senator Wesseh made the assertion when he served as guest speaker on the occasion of the 49th anniversary of the founding of ECOWAS organized by the ECOWAS Citizens Union (ECU) and the ECOWAS Civil Society Movement of Liberia (ECSOMOL), headed by Yahaya Jalingo and Oretha Dennis.
The milestone event, held under the theme,“Harmonized and Affordable Resident Permit Fees ForECOWAS Citizens Across the Sub-Region”, was convened at the Unification Park, PHP, in Monrovia and graced by ECOWAS Solidarity School System students, Kissi Choir, members of the diplomatic corps, and coincided with the formal launch of the ECOWAS Citizen Newspaper. African cultural dance was performed by troops of the sub-region, among other musical interlude.
“ECOWAS was established on the 28th of May 1975 with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos. Its stated mission is to promote economic integration across the West African sub-region. This Treaty was revised and signed on 24th July, 1993 in Cotonou, Benin. The fundamental principles of ECOWAS are based on equity, inter-dependence, solidarity, co-operation, non-aggression, regional peace, promotion of human rights, and economic and social justice,” Wesseh recalled.
According to him, the most notable protocols of ECOWAS is the protocol on the free movement of persons, residences and establishment.
Not only that, former Senator Wesseh said the stated goal is to achieve collective self-sufficiency for its members by creating a single large trade bloc through the building of a fair economic and trading union as ECOWAS aims to raise the living standards of the people and promote economic development and regional integration.
Vividly, the former River Gee Senator opined that ECOWAS later began organizing peacekeeping operations in the sub-region by sending joint military forces to intervene in any member state that may be experiencing violent political or armed instability.
With a membership of 15 states, former Senator Wesseh disclosed, ECOWAS has a population of nearly 387 million people (2019 est), covering a land space of 5,114,162 km2 or 1, 9 74,589 square miles.
He noted that 4 member states were suspended recently and they announced their withdrawal from the organization because their governments have been taken over by their militaries, in contravention of the ECOWAS protocol on democracy.
Retrospectively, former Senator Wesseh, one the nation’s astute politicians, voiced that “Liberia was one of the 15 countries that gathered in Lagos, Nigeria, to form ECOWAS as a political and economic union on May 28,1975. Armed conflict erupted in Liberia on December 24, 1989, with the aim to over-throw the military-turned-civilian regime of Samuel Kanyon Doe which, made up of 17 non-commissioned officers, had staged a coup d’état on April 12, 1980 that ended the more than 100-year rule of the True Whig Party (TWP) in Liberia”.
Accordingly, a bloody reign followed, which did not spare real and imaginary enemy/opposition, thereby provoking the armed rebellion as massive death of Liberians and residents ensued. Lest to add destruction of millions of dollars of social and economic infrastructure occurred, hundreds of thousands of Liberians and residents were displaced and large numbers sought refuge in many countries, especially neighboring West African nations.
“It was because of this harsh reality of death and destruction that Liberian Christian and Muslim leaders quickly came together and formed the Interfaith Mediation Committee, with the aim to secure peace between forces of the Doe Regime, on the one hand, and the emergent multiple rebel groups on the other. These patriotic leaders developed a plan by which they hoped the war could be ended,” the ex-senator of River Gee County further explained.
ECOWAS, he explained, in the spirit of African brotherhood, especially the ECOWAS principles of peace and solidarity, began to build on what the Liberian religious leaders, joined by Liberian women leaders, to declare and promote what became the famous ECOWAS Peace Plan, which provided for a ceasefire, the creation of an Interim Government not to be headed by a leader of any of the warring faction or group, creation of a peacekeeping military force contributed to by member states of ECOWAS, the disarmament and demobilization of the warring parties, and the holding of free and fair elections under the supervision of ECOWAS and the international community.
Former Senator Wesseh said Liberia was on the verge of total self-destruction and, as a major part of the peace plan, ECOWAS took the courageous and heroic decision to set up a political and military body to stop the carnage.
According to him, it really took the sweat, tears and blood of men and women from Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Senegal and Mali operating as the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), the first of such force in West Africa created only to save our country from that self-destruction.
The political and military leadership of ECOWAS and their peoples made every unimaginable sacrifice to ensure the implementation of the peace plan which ended with elections after seven (7) years of war, the former senatorstated.
Unfortunately, he lamented, ECOMOG was forced to leave Liberia prematurely by the newly elected President, the former warlord Charles Taylor, with visible actions reversing the gains made in the implementation of the peace plan as the reversals became manifest, new rebel armed groups emerged and armed violence erupted again, this time to remove from power the new regime of President Charles Taylor, now incarcerated in the Hague, The Netherlands on charges of war and crimes against humanity committed in neighboring Sierra Leone during the reign of the Revolutionary United Front(RUF) armed rebellion in that sisterly country.
On the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) Conmany Wesseh, a member of MOJA-Movement for Justice in Africa, informed his audience during the commemoration of the occasion making the 49thanniversary of ECOWAS that it took ECOWAS to lead the efforts to end the new round of war by negotiating the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that was signed in Accra, Ghana on August 18, 2003, thus finally ended the war in Liberia.
With this, former Senator Wesseh has extolled the combined military experience, diplomatic prowess and personal skills of the ECOWAS appointed former Head of State of Nigeria, General Abdulsalami Abubakar who championed and steered the mediation successfully, and that Agreement provided for the creation of ECOMIL, the vanguard force to the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). He said, “It took ECOWAS with Nigeria leadership, for that feat.”
ECOWAS and citizens of ECOWAS, the former senatoraverred, in and outside Liberia played pivotal roles in the consolidation of Liberia’s peace since. “We signed the peace agreement nearly 21 years ago, but Liberia is not out of the woods yet. We must continue to consolidate the peace with the solidarity and assistance of ECOWAS, ECOWAS citizens and the international community by promoting and advancing the aims and objectives of ECOWAS; upholding the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the enforcement of the real intentions, purpose and objectives of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which was meant to build and consolidate peace by emphasizing restorative justice as opposed to retributive justice; respecting and enforcing decisions of the ECOWAS authority, organs and other institutions of ECOWAS including and especially the ECOWAS Community Court.”
Former Senator Conmany Wesseh then appealed to all member states of ECOWAS, especially the government and people of Liberia, “to warmly embrace ECOWAS institutions and ECOWAS citizens everywhere as truly our own and our brothers and sisters because of the very positive role of ECOWAS in our sub-region and must harmonize and ensure affordable resident permit fees for ECOWAS citizens across the sub-region”.
The former River Gee County Senator used the occasion to call on the Government of Liberia (GOL) to lead the way of expressing gratitude by naming or dedicating public places like parks, streets or boulevards, buildings, schools or other institutions and communities in honor of ECOWAS and her heroes and heroines of peace for their roles in Liberia.