Rare is the military intervention, especially one launched by a former colonial power, that wins unanimous support in the United Nations Security Council and nearly total backing from the 54 member states of the African Union.

The AU’s fundraising conference on 29 January raised some US$455 million for African troops to join their French counterparts in Mali.

Rare is the military intervention, especially one launched by a former colonial power, that wins unanimous support in the United Nations Security Council and nearly total backing from the 54 member states of the African Union.

The AU’s fundraising conference on 29 January raised some US$455 million for African troops to join their French counterparts in Mali. Japan pledged $120 mn., showing renewed seriousness on Africa. China’s special representative for African affairs, Zhong Jianhua, offered just $1 mn. but said Beijing would add $3-5 mn. Despite their misgivings, two researchers at China’s Naval Research Institute, Li Jian and Jin Jing, said Beijing should contribute to a peacekeeping force. A leading Chinese scholar of Africa, He Wenping, warned that, as in Libya, the force in Mali could misuse its UN mandate.

Also promising $1 mn. were Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, India and Switzerland. Bahrain pledged $10 mn. but those states where the Arab Spring brought in Muslim Brotherhood governments were more sceptical. Mounting liberal opposition at home prevented Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi from attending the summit; he called France’s intervention unnecessary. His ally Iran also objected: Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi asked rhetorically why Western powers were fighting the sort of gangsters and terrorists in Mali that they were supporting in the opposition forces attacking Bashar al Asaad’s regime in Syria. Politics triumphs again.