Peacebuilding is a complex art, a complexity that is further compounded most especially with the strand that deals with West African conflicts. The cross-border nature of the conflicts has tended to elude even the best minds of the profession.

On a strange note, the West African region has initiated several mechanisms in times past with the goal of keeping conflict at bay but sometimes seen that such efforts did not succeed.

Now, it seems that current initiatives are being embedded with the inclusion of key actors -be that glorious or inglorious - of the region in such mechanisms for overall efficacy.

So was the strange revelation by none other than Joe Wylie, which the regional economic body of states have since November 2007 conferred on him the distinguished title of facilitator and national reference of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF).

With this designation, the former deputy defense minister of the transitional government of Liberia has said he is now duty bound to ensure that peace in Liberia here to stay for the benefit of the country's next generation and beyond.

But the question that nags the mind of reflective observers is whether Joe has now finally been transformed after a turbulent past? The Analyst reporter Joe Borteh picks up the pieces

Experts of member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have accordingly embarked on a draft conflict prevention framework aimed at serving as a reference for the ECOWAS System and member states in their efforts to strengthen human security in the sub-region.

Achieving this noble objective of preventing conflicts, the powerful institution has devised the ECPF, the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework and appointed key players and esperts of the region, who are perceived as catalysts for durable peace. In the case of Liberia, the regional body is represented by the former Liberian military chief, Joe Wylie to serve as one of its conflict prevention experts.

The former Deputy Defense Minister in the defunct transitional government, revealing this development to the Analyst over the week end said that he was extended an invitation by the regional body through its Council of the Wise, during their zonal bureau and local conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso last year.

He disclosed that the invitation was dispatched to him by the program research assistant from the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, who is based in Abuja, Nigeria. The former executive of the defunct LURD faction said that the Conflict Prevention Unit, also graded him as the zonal bureau head in Liberia.

He also disclosed that the first such consultative meeting of experts of the Draft ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and lasted from the November 6 to 8, 2007.

Making these statements recently in an exclusive interview with this paper in Monrovia, Mr. Wylie said that ECOWAS embarked on the initiative in order to identify and weed out potential zones of conflict in the Sub-region.

According to him, since assuming his responsibilities as facilitator and reference point, he has been looking at some potential trouble zones in the country with the view of trying to help ECOWAS ameliorate violent conflict in these places in order for the regional body to achieve its goal.

"I know how to prevent future conflict and I know how to find a way out to certain kinds of conflict," he said. The former defense chief said Liberia has so many zones of conflict that need serious attention, adding that he is currently looking at two of such areas.

According to him, the Firestone Rubber Plantation and the Liberian Agricultural Company are two critical zones of conflict in Liberia requiring constant monitoring to sustain the peace that the country now enjoys.

He then assured that as a conflict prevention expert of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, he will not compromise his expertie by sitting down to allow anymore warfare taking place in the country before he acts.

"We are not going to sit down again and allow another round of conflict to blow off before we get involved," Wylie, a former war-maker in Liberia affirmed. He stressed that with his presence on the regional conflict prevention body, he can assuredly declare the sub-region will now be free of violent conflict for today and for future generations to come.

"We're here to make sure that Africa, especially West Africa becomes a safe place for our children and their children, and this is the cause to which I devote the rest of my life to," he said.

Mr. Wylie who is in the country says he is ready to offer his services to ECOWAS whenever he is called upon to do so. But as the statement of the former defense chief did not have corroborating information beyond the communication of his invitation to the Burkina consultative conference, it is not known with any degree of certainty what his terms of reference. entail and to what extent he is supposed to provide findings and associated recommendations to the regional body to make the country a bastion of lasting peace.

Whatever the case, the purpose of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework in which the former defence chief works on the Council of the Wise has as its purpose to serve as reference for the regional body and member states in their efforts to strengthen human security in the sub-region.

This goal requires cooperative interventions to prevent violent conflicts within and between states and to support peacebuilding in post-conflict environments.