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Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have broken away from the 15-member regional bloc, ECOWAS.
The New York Times reports that the bloc has long ensured the free movement of people and goods among its tightly knit economies. By their actions, the three countries have further destabilized an area home to four hundred million people and threatened by violent insurgents.
The leaders of the three countries announced their withdrawal from the bloc last weekend. They said they were creating their own federation. The three countries, all ruled by military leaders friendly to Russia, span more than half of the bloc’s geographical area and are among its most populous. But they are not the region’s largest economies. They are landlocked countries which depend on access to ports in coastal countries for overseas trade.
Omar Alieu Touray, the president of the ECOWAS executive arm, said, “Our region is facing the risk of disintegration.”
Although the bloc appointed Senegal’s newly elected president as a mediator in the crisis, experts say the breakup is underway.
The three countries share borders, cultural and ethnic ties, and recent political history. However, their approach has mostly hurt the countries’ populations. In the founding treaty of their new alliance, the three leaders condemned the West African bloc’s “illegal, illegitimate, and inhuman sanctions.”
Their supporters and independent analysts have also denounced what they described as a double standard: Ecowas has rarely applied sanctions to civilian leaders in West Africa who cling to power despite term limits.
Meanwhile, the three countries have forged closer ties with Russia while severing military cooperation with the United States, France, and other European countries. Through their new federation, the Alliance of the Sahelian States, the countries’ leaders vowed to create a joint investment bank and conduct projects in agriculture, energy, and infrastructure.
They also announced the creation of a joint military force to fight jihadist insurgents who have killed tens of thousands in the three countries over the past decade.
