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February 12, 2012 (KHARTOUM) - A Sudanese general heading an Arab League’s team of observers to unrest stricken Syria resigned on Sunday amid harsh criticism of his performance and the eventual withdrawal of the mission.
- Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi (back-C), head of the Arab League observer mission in Syria, attends a meeting with Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on February 12 , 2012 (AFP)
The resignation of General Mohamed Ahmad Al-Dabi was accepted by the pan Arab body as foreign ministers of its member states met on the same day in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, to discuss new proposals against the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.
Al-Dabi’s resignation came two weeks after the Arab League suspended the monitoring team’s mandate following an escalation in violence between the Syrian regime and protesters seeking to dethrone Al-Assad.
"I won’t work one more time in the framework of the Arab League," General al-Dabi, told Reuters today.
"I performed my job with full integrity and transparency but I won’t work here again as the situation is skewed," he added.
The unrest in Syria has grown increasingly militarised with army defectors and protesters taking up arms against the regime as its crackdown intensified following the Russian and Chinese veto which blocked a United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) resolution that would have backed an Arab plan urging Assad to quit.
Al-Dabi’s appointment last December as head of the mission, adopted as part of the Arab League’s plan to salvage the situation in Syria, faced a barrage of criticism from international human right groups and Syrian activists who cited his former capacity as a close aide of the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir.
The controversial general was in charge of security in Sudan’s western region of Darfur in 2004 when it witnessed atrocities committed by government forces and allied militias against rebels and population perceived to be supportive of them.
The United Nations (UN) says more than 300,000 people died and 2.7 million fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in 2003.
Enough Project, a US based advocacy group, termed Al-Dabi’s appointment as “perplexing” given “his record of turning a blind eye to human rights crimes, or worse”.
Al-Dabi then underwent a backlash of angry reactions after he reported last month that the level of violence in the country had dipped since the arrival of the observers. He also said his mission had only observed 136 death cases, contradicting much bigger figures provided by Syrian opposition activists.
In a press conference he held later in the Sudanese capital, the general expressed satisfaction with his report and the performance of the mission.
He blamed the media for failing to understand that the mandate of his mission is to monitor the violence not stop it.
The UN says more than 5,000 people have died since the uprising against Al-Assad started in March of last year.
(ST)
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