The United Nations Security Council
today authorized the deployment to Mali of 11,200 peacekeepers
and a separate French unit to stabilize the land-locked African
nation and fight Islamist insurgents.
The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution
paving the way for UN peacekeepers, flanked by 1,440 police
officers, to take over July 1 from about 7,000 African troops.
As a former colonial power with the most at stake in Mali, France will maintain a presence after its January intervention
that was aimed at ridding the northern part of the country of
Islamist militants. The resolution says a smaller French force
will be in place in the north to “use all necessary means” if
Mali again comes under “imminent and serious threat.”
The UN force “will need to take quick steps to protect
vulnerable civilians and lay the groundwork to help the
government address problems that gave rise to the crisis, such
as a weak rule of law, impunity and deep-seated ethnic
tensions,” said Philippe Bolopion, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch in New York. “The challenges ahead are
daunting.”
France has been mapping an exit strategy for Mali for
months as the UN solidifies plans to turn African forces into
so-called Blue Helmets, as UN peacekeepers are often known.
Counterterrorism Focus
That managed transition to a larger UN force and France’s
commitment to stay on with a focus on counterterrorism seek to
respond to concerns that extremism has taken root in Mali’s
sparsely inhabited north while the south is plagued by political
instability, corruption and lawlessness.
Those plans will be tested by the resilience of the
jihadists and rebels groups who for 10 months controlled a vast,
arid swath of Mali the size of Texas. While the French offensive
drove the radicals into hiding, a pattern of guerrilla-style
fighting has emerged.
France’s Defense Ministry said today that the country’s
military intervention in Mali has cost 205 million euros ($267
million) beyond what the armed forces would have spent anyway.
The French troops, which numbered 4,000 at the height of
the intervention, will be down to 2,000 by July and 1,000 by
December, French Ambassador Gerard Araud old reporters.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Flavia Krause-Jackson in London at
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