Dr Benjamin Kunbuor
A former Minister of Defence, Dr. Benjamin Kunbuor has advised the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to develop a wider security architecture for its member states.
This, he said was a lesson ECOWAS did not learnt from Economic Community of West African State Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) during its intervention in the civil war in Liberia.
Speaking at the launch of the second edition of a book entitled, ‘ECOMOG, in Accra on Tuesday’, he explained that all member states should develop a wider security sector policy out of which a preferred sector policy could be carved.
According to him, it would help harmonise the integrated security architecture gap in the sub-region.
Dr Kunbuor noted that challenges of interoperability among soldiers in the sub- region were beyond language barriers.
“ECOWAS should not just focus on its harmonising powers, harmonising human right regimes, harmonising democratic structures without doing an integration and harmonisation of the security architecture of the sub region,” he added.
He said the book was a significant aspect of the historic ordeal of soldiers in the Liberia war between 1989 and 1996.
The author of the book, Colonel (Rtd) Festus B Aboagye in his submission said the book reflected the contribution of the ECOWAS experiment in deepening understanding of the norms of conflict resolution globally.
Col. Aboagye explained that the book contextualised the conflict within the broader discourse on the global sources of contemporary conflict and efforts of the sub-region to contain and resolve them towards ECOWAS as a pluralistic security community.
“ECOWAS has some yet to be resolved challenges in changing the sub-region from a ‘zone of war’ to a ‘zone of peace’ through meeting the expectation of a peaceful change,” he said.
The Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Obed Akwa said the book stood out as a key achievement for African states.
He commended the author and encouraged serving and retired soldiers to document their valuable experiences in war.
BY ALLIA NOSHIE
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS