Bad choice?

The Arab League mission in Syria continues to face strong skepticism on Friday as Syria's opposition called for nationwide demonstrations, and bloodshed continues. The protests are the first since the monitors arrived in the country seeking to implement an Arab League peace plan to end a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The opposition also called for the removal of the mission's chief, Sudanese general Mustafa al-Dabi. His initial assessment after a short visit to Homs that the situation was "reassuring" has aggravated doubts about his nomination.

The reason for that is that the name al-Dabi is inseparable from the Sudanese province of Darfur, where the UN says up to 300,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2009. In at least four of the positions he held under the regime of President Omar al-Bashir, al-Dabi was involved with the province.

Presidential charge

Al-Dabi owes his military career to al-Bashir – the man wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and war crimes in the Darfur region. After his coup in 1989, al-Bashir named al-Dabi head of his military intelligence service. Other high-ranking positions followed: he was head of external security and held the position of deputy Chief of Army Staff for military operations from 1996 to 1999.

The ICC in the Hague has not charged the general, also known as "the snake," with crimes against humanity, but observers say he turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses by the armed forces in southern and western Sudan.

He also seemed to look away as he negotiated the Darfur Security Accord between Darfur and the West. It is perhaps an irony of history that between 1999 and 2004, al-Dabi served as Sudanese ambassador to Qatar, the country that has now placed itself at the head of the democratization movement in the Arab World.

Close ties

But some observers have speculated that al-Dabi's nomination may have been calculated to help get Syrian President Assad to the negotiating table. After all, Sudan and Syria have excellent relations. During the Darfur conflict, Damascus was consistent in its support of the regime in Khartoum, and observers say the Sudanese government may be the only person Assad might still listen to.

But other critics say the mission to Syria led by a Sudanese military general failed even before it began. "Instead of leading a team to examine suspected human rights abuses in Syria, the general should be investigated by the ICC with regard to similar crimes in Sudan," said Omer Ismail of the US anti-genocide campaign Enough Project.

To add to other ironies, the Arab World has defended the general's nomination with his "long years of military experience" - the very bone of contention that has tainted the Sudanese in the eyes of the Syrian democracy movement.

Author: Ludger Schadomsky / db
Editor: Ben Knight