Meetings Coverage

The holding of peaceful, credible elections, protection of civilians, regional stabilization, control of mineral resources and security-sector reform presented the major challenges in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the coming year, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative told the Security Council this morning.

The tragic 30-year arc of the AIDS virus, which had left in its wake some 30 million people dead, nearly as many struggling to live with the disease and vast numbers of orphans, had likewise left the international community scrambling to answer a host of complex questions, such as how to accelerate targeted prevention interventions, and perhaps most critically, what can be done stop new infections.

Genocide and crimes against humanity continued unabated in Darfur because the President of Sudan had learned to defy the Security Council’s authority, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told Council members today. Luis Moreno-Ocampo said during his briefing on Sudan that the crimes in question included air attacks on civilians as well as the direct killing of members of the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.

After three decades, the global fight against AIDS was at a moment of truth and Governments, civil society and the private sector must come together to ensure that past commitments to achieve universal access to life-saving treatments were met and that the elusive pandemic was stopped in its tracks in the coming decade, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared today as he opened the General Assembly High-level Meeting on AIDS, which aimed to shape the future global response.

Ten years after the world community had come together to forge the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, participants in the first of five panels scheduled during this week’s three-day United Nations high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS called for a new paradigm in AIDS response that focused not only on the disease, but championed broader social development, supported the establishment of robust national health systems and, most importantly, responded to those without a voice.

Reaffirming its previous commitment to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a threat to international peace and security, the Security Council this morning encouraged the incorporation of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in the implementation of peacekeeping mandates. Resolution 1983 (2011), building on the first Council action on HIV/AIDS, resolution 1308 (2000), was adopted unanimously in a meeting presided by Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba.

It was critical for the parties in both North and South Sudan to reach accord on all outstanding issues under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement before the South declared independence on 9 July, the Security Council heard today, as the leaders of its recent mission to Africa briefed members on the visit.

Top officials from the United Nations war crimes Tribunals investigating atrocities committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the Balkan wars of the 1990s today hailed the recent arrests of high-profile fugitives, but warned the Security Council that the work — and legacies — of their courts was imperilled by persistent staffing woes, challenges in enforcing sentences, and the failure to set up a trust fund for the victims.

Demanding an immediate withdrawal of the Sudanese Government and of all military elements from the contested Abyei area, the Security Council today strongly condemned the Sudanese Government’s military seizure of the town and the resulting displacement of tens of thousands of residents, through a statement read out by Nelson Messone of Gabon, the Council’s President for June.

SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES, 2 June — The Caribbean regional seminar on decolonization had been a “lively” forum for sharing a range of views on the situations in the 16 Non-Self Governing Territories around the world, and the Special Committee on Decolonization must now undertake a self-analysis to better imagine its role in carrying out its work in the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2011-2020), the Chair of the Special Committee said today.