Paper short abstract:

The paper argues that externalities, contradictions and deviation from the principles of peacekeeping are plausible reasons why ECOMOG operations had failed to resolve regional conflict on permanent basis.

Paper long abstract:

The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) pioneered post-Cold War era regional peacekeeping with the deployment of troops to the first Liberian civil war 1989-1996. Other subsequent regional peacekeeping efforts have been deployed to resolve Sierra Leonean, Ivorian and other conflicts in West Africa region. However, while the use of military resources in addressing civil conflicts have been positively appraised; sufficient attention has not been paid to negative externalities and contradictions which such military operations have created. This paper used the conceptual approach to peacekeeping as enunciated in United Nations' Agenda for Peace, with a view to juxtaposing how ECOMOG's peacekeeping operations have aligned or deviated from the principles of peacekeeping as contained in the Agenda for Peace. The paper argues that externalities, contradictions and deviation from the principles of peacekeeping are plausible reasons why ECOMOG operations had failed to resolve regional conflict on permanent basis. This is evidenced in the two cycles of Liberian civil wars 1989-1996 and 1999- 2003; two cycles of Ivorian civil wars 2002-2004 and March -April 2011 as well as prolonged peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone. The study submits that deployment of military resources must be combined with other non-military approaches that address fundamental causal factors of conflict in order to attain sustainable peace.