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| THE ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATES (ECOWAS) The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been sending troops to keep the peace in Liberia since 1990, the beginning of the latest civil war. It helped negotiate a short-lived peace in 1993 in Benin and brokered the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Accra, Ghana, in 2003. ECOWAS sent peacekeepers into Liberia again in 2003, joining forces with the U.N. mission that followed two months later. As one of the 15 member nations of ECOWAS, Nigeria granted Taylor protection in exile and also provided the most troops to help maintain the fragile peace in Liberia. Liberia's immediate neighbors, Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, as well as most of the other nations in the region are part of ECOWAS. The remaining member nations are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. |