CEPO: AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) Should Take Serious Action on South Sudan
Serious Action is Required from the Leadership of the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) on South Sudan
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 (PW) —The Africa Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) held their 917th meeting online dated 9th April, 2020 on the situation in South Sudan. The meeting adopted the following decisions per their issued communique dated 9th April 2020:
- Emphasizes the urgency, as South Sudan emerges from the conflict, for the AU Commission to undertake a post-conflict needs assessment mission to the country, in order to jointly identify with the authorities, the priorities and resources required;
- Reiterates its request for the AU Commission to urgently finalize all necessary instruments for the operationalization of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan and to submit, within two months from the adoption of this communique, a progress report to Council on the issue;
Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) welcomes the two decisions and they are remarkable but serious action is required from the African Peace and Security Council leadership. Similar decisions were made in the past by the AUPSC but were not genuinely implemented. These two decisions are straight forward that just requested AUPSC to act without any delay.
Mr. Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of CEPO, said the conduct of post-conflict needs assessment mission and the commitment for ensuring that the issue of the process for the establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan is made clear by 9th June 2020 is encouraging if they are delivered by AUPSC seriously. The slow move by the leadership of African Union Commission and AUPSC is making the public loss trust on the strengthen of African Union in delivering peace and stability within its members states
It is now time for our South Sudanese parties to the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan to demonstrate their primary responsibility for making the peace agreement implemented genuinely. The silence around chapter 5 of the peace agreement is posing worry that issues of healing, reconciliation, reparation, justice, accountability and compensation will undermined in similar way like what happened with same issues under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) implementation period (2005-2011). Mr. Yakani stressed.