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While the deadline for Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to effectively withdraw from ECOWAS is drawing to a close, a last-ditch mediation attempt by the subregional community is being prepared. While awaiting its outcome, the African Union and, to a lesser extent, the United Nations are keeping some pressure on the leaders of the AES alliance.
At the end of its summit on July 7, 2024, ECOWAS announced a dialogue with the AES countries that announced their withdrawal from the sub-regional body at the end of January, but it has not yet entered the active phase.
On July 13, the President of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, designated as facilitator by his ECOWAS colleagues, along with President Faure Gnassingbé, will travel to the Togolese president, without specifying a date, to “identify together ways and means to find at least the same field of discussion” with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
In an interview with state media on the 100th day of his administration, Bassirou Diomaye Faye said he had “no illusions” and would face his counterparts in the AES Union “with great ‘humility’.
“I was not present when ECOWAS imposed sanctions on the AES states, fortunately or unfortunately. These states did not see me as one of those who sanctioned them, so they felt more comfortable talking to me than to other states. This is an asset that must be at the service of the community to ensure the goal of reconciliation to strengthen integration,” the Senegalese President also stressed.
“Unacceptable to the AU”
In his opening speech on the 65thth At the ECOWAS summit held in Abuja on July 7, Omar Aliu Touré, president of the West African Institutions Commission, warned the AES allied countries of the possible negative consequences of withdrawing from the sub-regional grouping. Some analysts believe that this is a form of intimidation against them. Mali’s head of diplomacy, Abdoulaye Diop, also condemned this approach, considering it an attempt to turn the population against the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Alliance.
“The withdrawal of these three countries from ECOWAS is unacceptable to the African Union, we believe in one ECOWAS,” said Bankole Adeoye, the African Union’s representative and commissioner for political affairs, peace and security. These remarks sparked anger among AES countries, which was highlighted by the foreign ministers in a joint statement on July 11, 2024.
“The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Alliance for the Sahel do not approve and condemn in the strongest terms this attitude, which is contrary to the duty of reserve and impartiality that is due to every official of an intergovernmental organization,” they replied.
UN promotes regional solidarity
On July 12, Leonardo Santos Simao, Director of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel and Special Representative of the Secretary-General, also called for maintaining regional unity in West Africa, while expressing concern about the decline in military strength in the region. Southeast Asian countries participate in regional security cooperation mechanisms.
“The African Union’s position is understandable, as is the UN’s. These are completely normal reactions, because that’s how the architecture of international organizations is built,” estimates Birahim Soumaré, an international strategic analyst and former Malian ambassador to Turkey.
“Beyond the compromise with ECOWAS, I am afraid that a certain isolation is developing among the African Union countries at the level of international organizations, both at the level of the African Union and at the level of the United Nations system,” worries the former diplomat.
The tone was very different from that of the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso. On July 10, Dr. Apollinaire Joachimson Kyélem de Tambèla, speaking at a meeting with UN Regional Directors, declared that if the African Union and the United Nations behaved like ECOWAS.
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