FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)
Suwaibou Touray
28 March 2008
interview
We have been focusing on politics in general and Gambian politics in particular. In the last editions, we have followed the narration of events as they unfolded during the civil war of Liberia.
In the last edition we have stopped where we said PDOIS opined that the West African leaders were adventurers, that they had created more anarchy, more carnage and more uncertainty, and that instead of admitting their error, pull out ECOMOG forces and take a new initiative, they became conceited and felt that unless they teach Charles Taylor a lesson, he would not negotiate.
Let us continue from where we stopped.
The analysis of the PDOIS, Foroyaa, the Nation, and the BBC, West Africa Magazine and so on had left many questions unanswered. General Arnold Quainoo, the first force commander of the Economic Community of West African States cease-fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) who refused to grant interviews for almost ten years or even talk about the events eventually had an exclusive interview with Ben Asante, in Accra and clarified his side of the story and his role as the first commander of ECOMOG.
Let us follow this interview which is culled from the West African Magazine's 20th -26th March 2000 issue which has gone far into clarifying the many unanswered questions raised by analysis, reporters and critics of ECOMOG intervention in Liberia.
Q. General, how did this whole idea of ECOMOG come about?
A. I was a member of the ruling Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) in Ghana when the troubles in Liberia began. The Chairman of the PNDC was Flt.Lt.Jerry Rawlings who later became the country's President. During our deliberations on the Liberian question in council, Chairman Rawlings showed us a film on Liberia.
It was a horrifying film. Chairman Rawlings had a separate meeting with me afterwards. He wanted to know what my impressions were after seeing the film. I told him something needed to be done urgently. He agreed.
He decided to send me on a crucial mission to ECOWAS leaders inviting them to collective action. Three days later I was in Nigeria to see President Babangida. He agreed with the position Ghana had taken, and had already positioned troops to move into Liberia. But, he did not want to be accused of rescuing President Doe. Doe had come to him for help earlier
In this light, he said Ghana should take the lead. Nigeria would follow
After Nigeria I went to Sierra Leone, Gambia and Guinea. Each country, for various reasons, wanted to intervene. In Freetown, President Momoh told me that he expected the rebels to move into Sierra Leone from Liberia. For this reason, he was prepared to support anything we were going to do to stop the rebels in Liberia. In Guinea, President Conte told me that he had heard that the Mandingo people (of Guinean descent) were being butchered in Liberia. He had plans to cross the Liberian border unilaterally, but preferred a collective move.
In Banjul, President Jawara told me that if some countries were ready to send in troops, then as Chairman of ECOWAS, he would contribute a token force to show his support of the peace effort.
I reported back to Chairman Rawlings in Accra. A few days later, a meeting was convened in Banjul to deliberate further and determine what needed to be done. A decision was reached by the ECOWAS 5-member committee on mediation to dispatch troops from the Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana. Dr. Abass Bundu, the then ECOWAS executive secretary, and I, coined the name ECOMOG.
Q Why the name ECOMOG?
A. We wanted it easy to pronounce the acronym.
Q It has been said that before you left Accra for Banjul, Ghana had first considered going into Liberia alone to rescue its citizens in 'operation exodus'. Is this correct?
A. This was indeed part of our plan. We had seen pictures of emaciated, hungry desperate women and children from Liberia. To do nothing would have meant that our sense of responsibility had vanished completely. No government could carry its dignity intact knowing that many of its citizens were in Liberia. Many well established ' countries in the West would always send - in the troops to rescue and bring their nationals home.
Q. When did your plan change into a collective operation?
A. It was after I had concluded my visit to ECOWAS heads of state. We decided against going in merely to rescue Ghanaians and leave the Liberians behind to rot.
Q. What led the Banjul meeting to send in the troops?
A. By the time we got to Banjul everybody was already convinced to send in the troops. We had further briefings from people who had first hand knowledge of the situation on the ground and everybody became committed. We were spurred into action by the ECOWAS demand that all groups should cease fire and anybody committing atrocities would be barred from any future political dispensation. The ECOMOG force, it was decided, should go in immediately to secure peace.
Q. Why was Guinea the only francophone country included in your consultations and the only one present at the inception of ECOMOG?
A. That's not true. Togo, too, was present. The consultations had been limited to the member countries of the mediation committee. Sierra Leone which was a concerned neighbouring state to Liberia was also present.
Apart from the Chad operation under the OAU which was never a success, no group of African countries has ever put a force together to intervene in another country.
Q. Were you aware of the risks involved?
A. What was crucial were the leaders being ready to commit the men and resources. As far as the planning was concerned, the military in this region have long been involved in international peacekeeping. True, we never did it as a sub-region. But no nation is ever adequately prepared for war. When you see a house that is burning, if you can find a calabash of water, you throw it first. Then you can get another bucket full of water and then you can call the fire brigade. In every war and in every operation you move in first and as you move you re-organized. We did not go into Liberia in phase one to take over the whole place. We could not have done that.
Phase one was to secure the Free Port and phase two was to expand our operations. Our objectives were to take some key points and hold on to them.
Q Did you have to fight to gain a foothold at Free Port?
A. We went by sea on an armada of ships, patrol boats, landing craft and Frigates. On our way into the port I noticed that the ship from Black Star Lines, which was directly ahead, had slowed down. The captain told me there was heavy fighting going on and his men were not prepared to go on.
I took my binoculars and there was all hell with heavy fighting between the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and Prince Johnson's Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). So I asked the ship to fall back to let me take the lead with my patrol boat.
By the time we reached the port, there was a lull in the fighting. There were a lot of dead bodies all over. Prince Johnson came to embrace me and said: "General, look at my own brother, he has just been shot dead by the NPFL."
Even before we landed. The NPFL fired on the Ambe killing one soldier. We arrived at about 7. 30pm. It was dark. We did not know that the NPFL had just retreated.
Their men were lying in the gutters waiting for us. By the time I gave out the orders to move out and take more ground around the port, we faced heavy fire. It took us two hours to push them back and to enable us to breakthrough. We met stiff resistance. We had to fight our way through to secure the various bridges and the roads in the designated positions of phase two.
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