ECOWAS to trigger “appropriate procedures” to take sanctions against those hampering implementation of Conakry Agreement

The ECOWAS Mission left Bissau today deploring that no significant progress was made in implementing the Conakry Agreement facilitated by the West African Sub regional organization to end the political crisis in Guinea-Bissau.

23 Jan 2018

ECOWAS to trigger “appropriate procedures” to take sanctions against those hampering implementation of Conakry Agreement

According to the final communique, the Mission aimed to bring to President Jose Mario Vaz, the message from the Chair of the Authority of  Heads of  State and Government of ECOWAS and Togo President, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, and from ECOWAS Mediator for Guinea-Bissau, President of the Republic of Guinea, Alpha Conde, in the framework of the commitments made by the Guinea-Bissau authorities at the 52nd ECOWAS summit on16 December 2017 in Abuja, to find a strategy to implement the Conakry Agreement for a quick exit from the crisis in Bissau.

After various meetings with the signatories of the Conakry Agreements, including PAIGC, PRS and the Group of 15 MPs expelled from the PAIGC, and the international community represented in Bissau the two-man Mission “noted that at the end of the 30 days granted to the Bissau-Guinean authorities by the Abuja Summit, no significant progress was made in implementing these agreements. Therefore, appropriate procedures will be initiated to take sanctions against all those who hamper the effective application of those agreements.”

At the end of the Abuja Summit last December, ECOWAS Authority took note of the roadmap presented by President Mario Vaz on the full implementation of the Conakry Agreement, in particular the appointment of a consensus Prime Minister.

To ensure consensual implementation of the proposed roadmap, ECOWAS leaders entrusted Presidents Alpha Conde and Essozimna Gnassingbe with the responsibility of holding talks with all stakeholders within a month, which ended on 16 January. Failing this, individual or collective sanctions would be imposed on all who hamper the implementation of the agreement.

It is in line with this recommendation that the two Head of States dispatched on 17-18 January to Bissau, the President of the Council of Ministers of ECOWAS, Robert Dussey, Togolese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Naby Youssouf Kiridi Bangoura, the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency of Guinea.

“While reiterating its commitment to support the people and the Government of Guinea-Bissau, the Mission urges the political actors involved in the crisis to favor dialogue, to place national unity above the political interests and to definitively resolve the current impasse through the implementation of implementation of the said (Conakry) Agreement.”

From 11-14 October 2016 in Conakry, the President of Guinea and ECOWAS Mediator, Alpha Conde, chaired a round of talks on the situation in Guinea-Bissau. These were attended by the Guinea-Bissau Speaker of the People’s National Assembly, the Prime Minister, parties with parliamentary representation, including PAIGC, PRS, PND, PCM, UM, religious leaders and civil society representatives.

The Conakry talks are part of the implementation of the six-point roadmap adopted by ECOWAS and entitled “Agreement on the Resolution of the Political Crisis in Guinea- Bissau” signed in Bissau on 10 September 2016.

Following Conakry discussions, Guinea-Bissau’s stakeholders agreed, among other, on:

-Appointment of a Prime Minister of consensus who has the confidence of the President of the Republic. The Prime Minister should be in office until the 2018 legislative elections;

-Formation of an inclusive government based on an organogram agreed upon by all political parties in the National Assembly, in line with the principle of proportional representation;

-The inclusive government will implement a programme prepared by a national roundtable dialogue within thirty days following the appointment of the Prime Minister.