ECOWAS and African Integration

ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, seems to be pushing for the deployment of troops into Guinea-Bissau, which is suffering from the problem that most of its high-ups are in fact drug dealers mainly interested in bumping each other off.

This is interesting – especially given that ECOWAS has already suspended the other Guinea over a coup there. It seems that a number of Africans are trying to rectify the long-running instability of African polities through supra-national organisations – no doubt in the hope that greater integration will also bring greater economic strength.

Murder, Drugs, and Genital Mutilation: Struggles in Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau is one of the world’s smallest and poorest non-island countries, and it’s recently appeared in the news (well, some news, my impression of news is mainly google world) but will no doubt shortly disappear again. I’m not really qualified to comment on it, but it bugs the hell out of me how the western media arbitrarily selects some countries/conflicts/situations and reports them in great detail, while leaving others, more significant in many ways, unmentioned. The most extreme example is probably Palestine vs. Congo, but there are endless others.

Anyway, so I have decided to counter this arbitrariness by arbitrarily selecting some little-attended issues and reporting them with the seriousness they deserve.

For those who need a brief recap of what has happened in Guinea-Bissau, about a week ago soldiers loyal to the president assassinated the head of the army, and then shortly afterwards, soldiers loyal to the head of the army assassinated the president.