GLOCAL February 2014 | Page 34

32 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