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governance of Sierra Leone Al Qaeda
had been benefiting from its diamond
trade. The tiny West African country
is connected to Al Qaeda fundraising
efforts involving the diamond trade.
The new demographics of AIDS will
also heighten security risks by
creating a new pool of orphans,
magnifying the child-soldier problem,
by 2010; over 40 million children
will lose one or both of their
parents to AIDS.
These include 2.7
million
in
Nigeria, 2.5
million
in
Ethiopia and
1.8 million in
South Africa.
A
consequence of
high
AIDS
prevalence in the
military is that states will be
less able and less willing to
contribute
their
forces
to
peacekeeping operations. Around
40% of current UN peacekeepers
come from countries with soaring
infection rates. Containing the
disease and its security implications
will require clear talk, a consistent
message and a coherent strategy. So
the first task is to break the taboo of
Page
all know a very simple but effective
truth—prevention is always better
than cure. It is by now very clear that
infectious disease can create
destabilization within the state and it
may even made states weak to be
used as safe havens for terrorists.
The more direct security threat is
that failed states can become havens
for the new enemies of global order.
The threats of economic and
political collapse from
the disease can also
lead to new
refugee flows.
Besides
facilitating the
spread of the
disease,
the
sudden
and
massive
population
movements
such
collapses provoke have led to
heightened region-wide tension and
destabilization. With AIDS likely to
reach pandemic levels in the
Caribbean and former Soviet Union,
American
and
European
governments will have to prepare for
refugee crises reminiscent of the
Haitian collapse and Balkan wars of
the 1990s. It is known that by
exploiting the weakness of the