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WEST AFRICA: ECOWAS sets up early warning system, plans military bases

LAGOS, 26 July (IRIN) - The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has set up an early-warning satellite-communication system and plans to establish two military bases to facilitate rapid deployment of peacekeeping troops in conflict situations.

The ECOWAS secretariat, based in Abuja, Nigeria, reported that the US $5.3-million communication system was made possible by financial and technical assistance from the European Union and the United States. "The network will make it possible to link via satellite the ECOWAS observation and monitoring centres with communication stations in member states," ECOWAS said in a statement on Thursday.

Officials of the regional body also confirmed media reports quoting ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohammed ibn Chambas as saying that ECOWAS planned to set up two military bases, one in a coastal member state and another in a landlocked member state, for the storage of "common user equipment".

Ibn Chambas said on Tuesday in Abuja that troops and equipment in such bases could be deployed to contain internal conflicts that threaten to cause major humanitarian disasters, jeopardise regional peace and security or "any other situation decided by the [ECOWAS] Mediation and Security Council".

He said the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a regional peacekeeping force that comprises 15 battalions, would be transformed into a standby force for humanitarian and peacekeeping operations in West Africa.

Ibn Chambas said that, to ensure regional security, additional protocols were to be adopted on democracy and good governance while a moratorium on the export and manufacture of small arms would be implemented. A child protection unit has already been created to help eliminate the use of children as combatants, he added.

The 15-member ECOWAS was established in 1975 with the aim of fostering rapid regional economic integration and development. Its role in conflict prevention and management became prominent from 1990, when it set up ECOMOG to intervene in the Liberian civil war (1989-1997).

ECOMOG oversaw the peace process and elections which marked the formal end of the Liberian conflict in 1997, and also intervened in Sierra Leone, where a civil war that broke out in 1991 was declared ended in early 2002.
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