Jordan Directions Syrian activists slam Arab League mission head | international

Jordan Directions Syrian activists slam Arab League mission head | international

clip from article:Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi is the head of the Arab League monitoring mission to Syria.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS Al-Dabi is accused of "turning a blind eye" to Darfur The ICC has issued warrants for some Sudanese, including the president The Arab League monitoring team arrived in Syria this week

(CNN) -- The selection of a Sudanese military commander to head the Arab League monitoring mission in Syria is a "farce" because of his government's actions in the embattled Darfur region, a Syrian opposition group said Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi has been named to chair the monitoring mission, designed to see whether the Bashar al-Assad regime is taking appropriate measures to end more than nine months of civil strife across the country. Al-Dabi and his monitoring team arrived in the Syrian city of Homs on Tuesday, and the observers were fanning out to other trouble spots Wednesday -- Idlib, Daraa and Hama.

The objections to al-Dabi's presence appeared in a statement from the Doctors Local Committee in Damascus. The remarks showed up in a post on the website of the Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, a major opposition activist network. CNN has not yet been able to get a reaction from the Arab League or Sudan, a league member.

"The appointment of al-Dabi taints the Arab League's efforts and characterizes it as nothing more than a political farce, causing little help but much harm to the situation in Syria. We call for a fair, independent observer mission to be allowed full and unrestricted access to all areas of Syria. It would be more appropriate, in our view, in the circumstances of the current conflict, for the United Nations to be mandated to conduct the monitoring mission," the statement said. [read more at link]