The United Nations Security Council, so powerless about Syria, has unanimously approved military action to reclaim Mali's north from Ansar Eddine and other Al Qaeda-related groups. This is good news for Mali, and for the UN. But there is still a dismaying amount to be done. This is a test the UN needs to pass, and not only for Mali's sake.
The Security Council voted on Friday to authorise force in support of Mali's national unity. The 15-country Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) will be asked to supply troops, no doubt with western aid in the form of intelligence data, transport and logistics.
The UN moves slowly, when it moves at all. Northern Mali has been cut off from the rest of the country since a coup in the capital Bamako last March. Tuareg rebels, backed by Islamist groups, declared the independence of the region, which they refer to as Azawad.
Very quickly, however, the Islamists pushed the Tuareg independence movement aside and seized control of the territory with disastrous results, imposing their own harsh version of Sharia law, destroying ancient heritage sites in Timbuktu and sending half a million people fleeing. One particularly nasty Islamist group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, has set up shop kidnapping foreigners and extorting ransoms.
Bamako is woefully incapable of restoring order. The March coup by army officers - who claimed they would crush the Tuareg rebellion - simply accelerated the chaos. The military, under pressure from Ecowas, nominally yielded power to a new civilian "national unity" government. But relations remain so tense that Friday's UN resolution actually calls on the armed forces not to interfere with the civilian government.
Recreating unity in Mali under elected leaders will not be easy. The UN's impotence regarding Syria does not bode well for meaningful action, but Mali is a different case. The Security Council wants to see an intervention plan within 45 days, in consultation with Ecowas and others. Even if that deadline is met, actual intervention is still months away.
It is encouraging, however, that the main Tuareg group now says independence is not essential. As the Security Council has urged, the civilian leadership should respond to that by seeking a "sustainable political solution" with the Tuaregs. That would entail more local autonomy, and sharing of power and economic opportunity.
There's a lot at stake. Those 500,000 refugees from the north are involuntarily spreading the crisis to neighbouring countries with Tuareg and Islamist problems of their own. Ecowas has a credible record of intervention in West African conflicts, and the grouping deserves full international support.
