A leading civil society organization in South Sudan's capital city Juba has criticized the recent African Union Peace and Security Council communiqué keeping silent on the delay to release an AU inquiry report on human rights violations.

African Union investigators completed research on allegations of mass atrocities in South Sudan last year but the organization chose to keep their report confidential. Radio Tamazuj earlier this month obtained a 60-page document produced by the AU Commission.

Although not a final version of the AU report, the document was produced using raw information gathered by African Union investigators. The document stated, “Juba is settled along ethnic lines, and the killings took place in Nuer residential areas, as a house to house operation. The violence ethnically cleansed the city of Juba of its Nuer population.”

During an AU summit meeting in January, the African Union leaders decided to delay release of the report. After another meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council last week on 24 March, the AU kept its silence on the report.

CEPO, the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, yesterday released a statement in response to the African Union.

“The language of the communiqué so far is reasonable in comparison to the previous communiqué,” CEPO said, praising the AU for backing the establishment of an UN sanctions mechanism.

“But CEPO is disappointed with the communiqué being silent on the issue of the African Union Commission of Inquiry report publication including the serious problem with some leakage of contributions to the report.”

“Additionally, the communiqué is also silent on urging the government of South Sudan to declare its own investigation report of mid-December 2013 human right atrocities publicly including the government presenting the report to African People and human Right commission.”

File photo: Former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo, head of the AU inquiry panel