Well, that didn’t take long

Last week’s Burkina Faso coup appears to be over almost before it began:

The Burkina Faso general who seized power in a coup last week apologized to the nation Monday and said he would hand over control to a civilian transitional government after the military warned that its forces would converge on the capital and forcibly disarm the soldiers behind the power grab.

Gen. Gilbert Diendere said his presidential guard unit “confirms our commitment to giving power back to civilian authorities.” That was one of the key conditions of a draft agreement that resulted from weekend negotiations with regional mediators, but it had been unclear until his announcement whether the junta would abide by those terms.

The junta had already released interim President Michel Kafando and promised yesterday to restore civilian government, but there was no indication that the restoration would happen so quickly.

It would be swell to imagine that Diendéré and his fellow coup plotters backed off because of their “commitment to giving power back to civilian authorities,” but let’s be serious: the threat from the Burkinabé army was very real and very imminent. Also at stake was a threat from the African Union to start issuing travel bans and freezing the foreign assets of the coup plotters as of tomorrow, if there was no agreement on restoring civilian governance.

It remains to be seen whether the civilian government that resumes governing the country will be the same one that was overthrown last week, or if its composition will be changed. Also at issue is the feasibility of holding elections on October 11 and whether the electoral laws (which the junta cited as its justification for the coup) will be changed in any way. Supporters of the coup, and there are some, may also take to the streets now that the coup has fizzled out. Still, even without knowing how those things will play out, this seems like a positive development.

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