Tony Okerafor — "IN 1990, when ECOMOG was being deployed in Liberia, the factions there said categorically they were not going to accept any foreign troops there. But, ECOMOG went in ..That is a precedent, and that we have something we call cohesive intervention.

"ECOWAS is in consultation with the junta about contingency plans: whatever that can be done in order to reassure the population of Guinea and the neighbouring countries that the situation, as has been evolving very rapidly in that country, will not have a domino effect in the Mano rive region."

Dr. Abdel Fattau Mussa, director of Political Affairs, ECOWAS, answering a reporter's questions on Tuesday, December 15).

The biggest news coming from the African continent over the last forthnight or so is being created in Guinea, a French-speaking country located along the continent's west coast. Since September 28, the political and military situation in that West African state has not stopped deteriorating, following the cold-blooded murder of scores of opposition protesters by a detachment of Guinea's armed forces at a political rally in a sports stadium in the capital Conakry.

After those massacres, the ruling military junta in Guinea, known as the C.N.D.D., or the National Council for Democracy and Development, has come under such intense pressure from both within and outside the country, and what happened late Thursday, December 3, has now come to be recognised as a fall-out of September 28. An attempt on the life of Guinea's military strong man, Captain Moussa Dadis Kamara, left him with serious head injuries, forcing his departure to Morocco, where he's being treated in a military hospital. The original impression Guineans and the world were given was that the thirty-two-member ruling council, the C.N.D.D., were in control of affairs, despite Dadis's unavoidable absence. By Sunday, December 6, exactly three days after the head of state's attempted assassination, his second-in-command, a general, was announced as interim leader. However, efforts by General Sekouba Konate to reassure a frightened nation, as well as an anxious world community, that Guinea was not facing a power vacuum proved abortive.

So much for the antecedents. What about the status quo? The current position inside Guinea is that military are no longer under the control of either General Sekouba Konate as an individual or the C.N.D.D. as a body. Short of intra-army clashes breaking out, Guinea's military is now split into ethnic factions-divided into the country's three main regions: namely, the Upper Guinea region where the country's first president, Ahmed Sekoutoure, hailed from, the Maritime region, the birthplace of second president, General Lansana Conte, and the Forest region, where Captain Dadis comes from.

Beginning early November, the military junta, led by Dadis, has been engaged in political and reconciliation talks with Guinea's opposition groups, including opposition parties and civil society organisations. The talks had been convened in order to find an amicable way out of the crisis that gripped the country, following the slaughters of September 28, and top on the talks agenda have been the following: one, the future of Dadis, especially against the backdrop of intense pressure from the opposition that he must go; two, the modalities for holding national elections originally scheduled to take place early next month, January, and three, the fate of the ring-leaders of September's brutal massacres by soldiers.

Where does the ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, come into the picture. The regional grouping, now led by Nigeria, had convened the discussions between Guinea's disputing parties. ECOWAS is by no means a stranger to conflict resolution in Guinea, in 2007 and 2008, which were the twilight years of General Conte's twenty-four-year-long reign, ECOWAS leaders were instrumental to the negotiations between the government and the opposition, which prevented Guinea sliding into civil conflict. When Conte's troops revolted against him over unpaid salary arrears and corrupt leadership in the army, ECOWAS also waded in.

Following the bloodless military coup that brought Dadis and his colleagues to power in December, 2008, ECOWAS diplomatic intervention was, again, key to maintaining level-headedness in the bitter row that has subsequently erupted over whether or not Captain Kamara should take part in forthcoming elections. As that was been resolved, the murders of September 28 intervened to complicate matters; and while the regional grouping was coming to terms with those atrocities, Dadis's shooting, over a fortnight ago, brought a totally new dimension to the political equation.

Judging Abdel Fattao Mousa's remarks, as quoted above, it does appear that the ECOWAS leaders have now run out of patience with Guinea's military junta. What he did not say in very many words is that the junta in Guinea has already lost it. He did not say as much, but, what he and his colleagues in the ECOWAS leadership have now 'decided'" to do is only indicative of one thing: that they have lost faith in the ability of General Konate and his colleagues in either the C.N.D.D. or the junta to keep Guinea's men-at-arms united or disciplined.

Is an ECOMOG-style force mobilising in readiness to be deployed to Guinea? When he spoke, Monday at the Bourkinafasso-hosted mediation talks on Guinea, chaired by President Blaiz Campaore and the International Contact Group, the ECOWAS director of Political Affairs did put that possibility squarely on the table. The meeting was actually the first to be held, following the attempted assassination of the junta leader by his former aide-camp. Fattah Moussa may not have said so openly; but, he and his colleagues must have taken into account the fact that factions within Guinea's military have been at loggerheads, and there are fears for the safety and security of civilians in the country, as well as in neighbouring countries, should the situation explode.

With such concerns in mind, ECOWAS's plan is to send a force, as well as to discuss matters with the African Union, A.U., the United nations, U.N., and Guinea's C.N.D.D. military junta and the opposition.

Dr. Fattaou Mussa told a reporter that the regional grouping had delivered "a stark warning to the authorities in Guinea that ECOWAS and its partners will not stand by while the situation in Guinea continues to deteriorate and then threaten the very stability of the neighbouring countries that, incidentally, have just come out of war..."

The ECOWAS official has, however, tried to clarify issues, following a robust response by the Guinea junta, and explained that the proposed ECOWAS forces "is not the ECOMOG style of military intervention". He calls it "just something like an observer mission, made up of civilian and, military officials"' deployed to the troubled Mano River Union country with the overriding objective of helping to 'assure people of their basic security".

But, while ECOWAS has been justifying its latest stance by citing a worsening humanitarian crisis in Guinea, officials of the Conakry junta, one after another, have been coming out to lambast the leadership of the regional grouping. In the words of one military spokesman, "any deployment of foreign troops without government's approval will be considered as an attack on the sovereignty of our country."

As for the Guinean opposition, they have responded with applause to the ECOWAS plan, and why not?