ARCHIVED: Commentary No. 80: HIV-AIDS and The Security Sector in Africa: A Threat To Canada

Commentary No. 80 has been archived.

John Harker, B.A., M.A., LL.D.

September 2001
Unclassified

Editors Note: John Harker specializes in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, advising governments and civil society on these issues, particularly concerning Africa and the Balkans. He has served as a special advisor in the Office of the Deputy President of South Africa, and was appointed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to head Canada's Fact-finding and Assessment Mission to Sudan. He has been pleased to serve as a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University.

Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the Commentary series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.

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Introduction

On April 26, 2001, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, addressed a summit conference held in Abuja, Nigeria to focus opinion and resources on the dreadful scourge of AIDS, from which Africa is suffering more than any other continent⁽¹⁾. He spoke about the "war on AIDS," and "mobilizing" the citizens of Africa for this great "battle." This "war on AIDS" will be costly, he said, but at perhaps an extra US $7-10 billion a year around the world, the cost would be not much more than 1% of the world's annual military spending.

It is ironic that while the Secretary General appropriately uses military metaphors and comparisons in drawing attention to the problem of AIDS in Africa, it is in the military or security sector that the impact of HIV/AIDS is very marked and represents such a danger, not just to human health and well-being in Africa, but in countries engaged with it, such as Canada.

The Secretary General's Abuja remarks were by no means the first directed at the impact of AIDS in Africa. A newspaper headline in South Africa in December, 1998, had already put it in stark terms, "Africa's Military Time Bomb,"⁽²⁾ and the assertion which followed must give Africa-watchers concern. It was simply stated: the advent of democracy and regional stability, two prerequisites for the African Renaissance, are bound to remain elusive as AIDS devastates the armies of Africa.

In January, 2000 the UN Security Council devoted a session exclusively to the threat to Africa from HIV/AIDS, which was described as killing ten times more people in Africa than war. This was the first time the Security Council had discussed a "health issue" in the context of concern for human security, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) saw the "epidemic" as fast becoming sub-Saharan Africa's number one human security issue.

The Security Council session was chaired by the Vice-President of the United States, and just a few months later, on May 1, 2000, the White House Spokesman said that the US National Security Council now considers AIDS a US national security issue in view of the staggering and destabilizing numbers of deaths it is causing in some African countries⁽³⁾.

The Intelligence Estimate unveiled by the White House Spokesman was, according to John C. Gannon, Chairman of the NIC, a product of a Presidential Decision Directive calling for a more focused US policy on infectious diseases, and the "unprecedented" UN Security Council session was a measure of the international community's concern about the infectious disease threat.⁽⁴⁾

One outcome of both initiatives was Resolution 1308, adopted by the UN Security Council on July, 17, 2000; among other things, the resolution targeted armed forces and UN peacekeepers for education, training, and prevention efforts. It urged that member states introduce voluntary HIV/AIDS testing for all national uniformed forces, especially those assigned to peacekeeping.

This in turn led to UNAIDS organizing its first meeting of civilian and military experts to discuss AIDS as a security issue. They were faced with data from UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) showing that "international and national uniformed services, including peacekeepers, peace observers, military personnel and the police, consistently rank among the population groups most affected by HIV and AIDS."⁽⁵⁾

Also in December, 2000, the African Development Forum met in Addis Ababa to focus attention on HIV/AIDS, and it concluded that the military is an important factor in the spread of the disease, and should be a high-priority target for interventions, as well as a possible agency for positive social change at the community level. In December, 2001, the XIIth International Conference of AIDS and STDs in Africa will be held in Ouagadougou, the theme being "Communities commit themselves," but nowhere does the program contain a focus on AIDS and the security sector.

HIV/AIDS and other scourges

Infectious diseases remain a leading cause of death both in Africa and worldwide, and in the past 30 years, at least 30 previously unknown disease agents have been identified for which no cure is available. They include Ebola, Hepatitis C, and HIV.

HIV/AIDS is likely to account for the overwhelming majority of deaths from infectious diseases in Africa by the year 2020. Already, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for nearly half of infectious disease deaths worldwide, and its health care capacity remains very poor. This situation will likely worsen unless strong action is taken. The UNDP has estimated that HIV/AIDS is shaving off up to 2% of annual economic growth in the worst affected countries⁽⁶⁾.

In his Abuja address, the UN Secretary General confirmed that Africans are particularly vulnerable because they are poor, undernourished, and too often uninformed of basic precautions or unwilling to take them. In short, their countries are underdeveloped⁽⁷⁾.

With respect to being uninformed, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, has pointed out that recent research in the developing world has shown that nearly half of all teenaged girls in 15 countries surveyed did not know that a healthy looking person can have HIV/AIDS, and that in Mozambique, 74% of girls and 62% of boys, in the 15-19 age groups, were unaware of even a single way to protect themselves⁽⁸⁾.

In his Abuja address, as reported in the opinion pages of the International Herald Tribune, the Secretary General went on to say that while the best cure is economic growth and broad-based development, AIDS is one of the biggest obstacles preventing African societies from developing as they should⁽⁹⁾. In fact, HIV/AIDS and associated disease complications are now taking a heavy toll on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa, and the GDP could be reduced by as much as 20% in some countries in the next few years, life expectancy could be reduced by 30 years, and millions of children lose one or both parents to AIDS.

At a UN Security Council meeting on 19 January 2001, Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, said: "By overwhelming Africa's health and social services, by creating millions of orphans and by decimating health workers and teachers, AIDS is causing social and economic crises which in turn threaten political stability." Ensuring that political stability is safe from illegal external or internal attempts to undermine it is the responsibility of the Security Sector.

The Security Sector and HIV/AIDS

The security sector, by which we mean the institutions of a state which are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of individuals, as well as national territorial integrity, is itself not immune from these developments.

It is an uncontested view that most legitimate governments in Africa depend strongly on an effective security sector to maintain themselves and meet their obligations, both to their own peoples and the international community.

What does the security sector in Africa look like? In 1994, the head of the UNDP made the point that development in Africa would not succeed while arms spending continued unabated. At meetings organized by the OECD and the World Bank in succeeding years, this was repeated, but in addition, the point was made that too little spending on the security sector could be as dangerous as too much.

The May, 1997, revolt of the Army of Sierra Leone, following an increase in the price of the soldiers' rice, and possibly the more recent shooting of Laurent Kabila, former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in a dispute with senior military officers, underscore the importance of relations between an African government and its armed forces, police, and intelligence services.

It has been estimated that the rate of HIV-infection in the Congolese army is 50%. In fact, US National Intelligence statistics have put HIV prevalence in the DRC military at between 40-60%. DRC armed forces health officials put the figure at 14%, but admit that 60% of army deaths between 1989 and 1993 were the result of AIDS, and that it is today the chief cause of death. Authorities attribute the high HIV rates among soldiers to their mobility, their youth, and their levels of sexual activity, including unprotected commercial sex.

Of the other African countries with soldiers deployed in the DRC, HIV estimates are also high-40-60% for Angola, 66% for Uganda, and 80-90% for Zimbabwe, for instance⁽¹⁰⁾.

Zimbabwe's southern neighbour, South Africa, is reputed to have the best-trained, and one of the best-equipped, armies in sub-Saharan Africa. An AIDS researcher calculated, in late 1998, that about 40% of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) are HIV-positive, and while the acting Surgeon General of the SANDF disputed this claim, it appeared to be endorsed by Nizizwe Madlala Routledge, the deputy defence minister. The SANDF does not admit into its ranks anyone who tests positive for HIV, but soldiers extending their service are not re-tested, and the Executive Director of UNAIDS has made the point that most infections occur after recruitment anyway.

In April, 2001, South Africa committed its first contingent to UN Peacekeeping duty, when a detachment of 93 soldiers from the SANDF were deployed in the DRC. It is said that to compose the detachment, the SANDF first tested a group of 400 potential peacekeepers. But 90% were found to be HIV positive. A second group of 400 produced slightly better results when tested-only 87% were positive. The "negatives," some 93 in number, are now on duty in the DRC.

UNAIDS has estimated that in peacetime, soldiers run a two to five times greater risk of infection than civilians, with the risk being greater in times of conflict. Many African armies do not know "peacetime," and are constantly engaged in wars, civil disturbances, and peacekeeping. Justice Africa and the InterAfrica Group, two research and lobbying NGOs, recently analyzed war and instability in Africa, and observed that "during the 1990s, there have been more than a dozen new or protracted conflicts in Africa."⁽¹¹⁾

In her book The Politics of AIDS, the South African writer, Virginia van der Vliet, says: "Wars and anarchy create ideal conditions for the transmission of HIV. Soldiers and civilians, many moving without partners or families for extended periods, live outside of conventional morality, many resort to prostitution to satisfy their needs. War brutalises human relationships..and..brings sexual violence in its wake."

UNAIDS informed the special session of the Security Council that the use of rape in war has been documented and that there were reports of soldiers in the DRC conflict raping women of "the enemy side" with the stated intent of infecting them with HIV.⁽¹²⁾

The DRC is, of course, one place where conflict, peacekeeping, and AIDS converge.

The high rate of HIV-infection in African armies is affecting deployment, and this immediately threatens elusive regional stability in Africa. And while many countries test for HIV and are said to refuse to send positive soldiers on peacekeeping duties, there is no guarantee systems of control are working; some countries continue to resist testing.

The US National Intelligence Estimate, NIE 99-17D, argued that infectious diseases would account for more military hospital admissions than would battlefield injuries, with US military personnel deployed in support of humanitarian and peacekeeping operations being at the highest risk. In addition, the infectious disease burden would also weaken military capabilities in some countries, and the international peacekeeping efforts more and more dependent on them, with the officer corps of the more modernized armies of sub-Saharan Africa being hardest hit.

The impact of HIV/AIDS on peacekeeping will not be restricted to performance, stability, and security in Africa; the armed forces of other countries serving in a theatre alongside African armies must remain vigilant. The Canadian Forces are, and will be, in that exposed position.

The Impact on Canada

Three types of likely impact must be considered. First, there is the matter of "proximity;" Canadian armed forces and civilian personnel are more than before serving on peacekeeping duties in Africa, sometimes alongside soldiers from African countries.

Sending peacekeepers into war zones poses the obvious dangers to their health, but the UN Security Council is also very aware of their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. In its ground-breaking Resolution 1308, the Council was mindful of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and expressed its concern at the potential damaging impact of HIV/AIDS on the health of international peacekeeping personnel.

One aspect of the vulnerability is particularly worth noting. AIDS has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations, such as displaced persons and refugees, and many of these are to be found in Sierra Leone and the Horn of Africa, where Canadians are now serving, not to mention the DRC, where they might soon be asked to serve. Women in refugee camps, such as are established by the UN agencies, are six times more likely to become infected than populations outside the camps⁽¹³⁾. It was with this and other tragic realities in mind that the members of the Security Council, including Canada, approved Resolution 1308.

It would be appropriate for Canada to ascertain just what has been done to implement the Resolution and thus protect its own peacekeepers, who have to work alongside forces from many other countries. Few of the 31 000 peacekeeping soldiers and police working under the UN flag come from countries where HIV tests are mandatory-or even voluntary. Some actively forbid testing.

Many peacekeepers, military or civilian police, come from countries with high levels of infection, and this might increase if Western countries, rather than risk their own troops, rely on the armed forces of the poorer countries. Testing is a sensitive issue, and not only countries with high infection rates are opposed to mandatory testing. For example, India, a major contributor of effective peacekeeping soldiers, is opposed to testing, and the government has said that it finds objectionable the imputation that peacekeepers are either necessarily at risk or carriers of the disease.

The Indian battalions serving with UNAMSIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, were withdrawn following a clash between the Indian Force Commander and his Nigerian deputy. UNAMSIL is attempting to keep the peace while the government of Sierra Leone and the rebels rebuild the momentum offered by the July 1999 peace agreement. Meanwhile the government is continuing with its policy whereby the International Military Assistance Team, in which Canada participates, tries to rebuild the Sierra Leone Army.

A feature in South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper⁽¹⁴⁾ asserts that "efforts to rebuild the Sierra Leone Army are being threatened by the spread of HIV/Aids, with a test sample indicating that two out of three soldiers could be infected with the virus." The article refers to an unidentified UN report, but cites a Major James Samba, chair of the HIV/Aids committee for the armed forces, as estimating that between a quarter and a third of the 12,000 men in the army are HIV-positive. With Sierra Leone only recently being regarded as one of the least infected African countries, the article goes on to suggest that the arrival of thousands of peacekeeping troops from Zambia, Kenya, and Nigeria might have had something to do with worsening the HIV/AIDS situation in Sierra Leone.

The second impact area relates to the fact that many Canadian firms are establishing a presence in Africa, and recent immigrants to Canada from Africa are becoming more active in fostering links between both places. Ties of all kinds between Canada and Africa are growing. Though there are no direct flights between Canada and sub-Saharan Africa, travel between the two continents is not inconsequential, whether for business, family reunification, or tourism. Earlier in 2001, a scare occurred in the Greater Toronto area when a recently-arrived woman passenger, who had flown into Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport from the DRC, was admitted to hospital with suspected hemorragic fever, conjuring up fears of an Ebola outbreak, or something similar, in this country.

Finally, Canada has committed substantial resources to peace, sustainable development, and the promotion of human security in Africa. Gains in these fields are sometimes slow in realization and need substantial nurturing. One example is the DFAIT Human Security Program contribution, through an NGO, Save the Children, to the training of trainers and development of curricula relating to the training of West African military staffs on issues of child rights and child protection. Each gain can be set back should the security sector in African countries fall apart, completely reject the rule of law in a bid for power or influence, or simply spread the virus rather than become an agent for change in how their countries respond to the crisis. In any or all cases, Canada's contributions become vitiated, and her broad range of interests threatened.

Work in Progress

In November, 2000, the former President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, addressed a session of the World Bank's Africa Forum and asserted that there was a "wall of silence" around HIV/AIDS, a dangerous wall which would destroy Africa if it was not broken. His country, Zambia, has been unsure of how to react to the pandemic, first refusing, then accepting a World Bank loan to combat HIV/AIDS, first instituting and then postponing a public awareness campaign. Zambia is not alone in this regard.

However, steps are now being taken to understand and react to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the security sector in Africa. This is happening on the streets and in the State Houses. For example, in December, 1999, a serving officer with the Uganda Peoples Defence Force admitted, during prayers in a Kampala mosque, that he was HIV-positive. Moreover, he admitted that he had knowingly infected more than 30 women and girls. Pressure from womens' groups led to his arrest, and to the invigoration of Uganda's multi-sectoral approach to fighting the disease.

The Uganda Army first became serious about HIV/AIDS in 1986, when President Museveni sent a contingent to Cuba for training. There they encountered compulsory testing, and 20% of them were found to be HIV-positive. Museveni is said to have quickly recognized this as a potential security threat to his country.

Elsewhere in Africa, leaders in both civilian life and the security sector are ignoring reality, sometimes embracing bogus "cures," other times concentrating more than before on simply enriching themselves, often at the expense of other people, while there is life left to live. This also constitutes a threat to security in all its meanings, and further puts off the "African renaissance," its acceleration on the path to sustainable economic and social development, which is so much needed by so many people across the diverse continent of Africa.

Nigeria is one of the countries in the forefront of renewed efforts, under the Millennium African Recovery Plan, to secure the "renaissance." In January, 2001, the Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army, General Victor Malu, lent his prestige, and that of the army, to a Nigerian doctor's claims that he had developed a cure for AIDS, to the great disappointment of the ministry of health, which knows there is, as yet, no cure: acting as if there is derails campaigns of prevention and other coping strategies. The doctor's clinic in Abuja is actually guarded by the army.⁽¹⁵⁾

The UN Secretary General probably did not visit the clinic during his recent visit to Abuja, where he stated that AIDS has become Africa's biggest development challenge, one that cannot be treated as just another aspect of the battle for development, and one which requires that Africans convince the rest of the world that they have a strategy for waging war against AIDS.⁽¹⁶⁾ While it is always invidious to discriminate among victims, it is clear that a strong focus on dealing with AIDS in the security sector in Africa, as a major priority, must figure in the strategy of which the Secretary General speaks. Otherwise, the gains made at so much cost will be imperilled, and the condition of the people worsened.

The UN has now begun to deploy peacekeepers in the DRC. Dubbed 'Africa's first world war,' the conflict in and over control of the DRC has involved most neighbouring countries, and plunged its 50 million people into years of bloody fighting.

The DRC's foreign minister recently spoke of two million deaths as a result of the war, and more than half a million were children.⁽¹⁷⁾

It is obvious that the conflict has led to a worsening health situation in the DRC. In a report in the Lancet (15 January 2000), the NGO, Médecins sans Frontières, said the conflict had caused the health sector to "dissolve," and warned of an impending "humanitarian megacatastrophe," with outbreaks of vaccine-preventable epidemics, rampant malaria, sleeping sickness and growing HIV infection. Estimated at a moderately low 4.35% in 1997, this was rising as a result of mass movements, family breakdown, and increased sexual violence, including that from soldiers bringing in infections from other countries.

As has been noted, the conflict in the DRC has drawn in soldiers from many African countries, and the UN peacekeeping mission there will similarly depend on African armies. One country which did not participate in the conflict but now plays a peacekeeping role is South Africa, and the media there has maintained a close watch over events and developments in the DRC. One report in January 2001 noted that 2.2 million civilians had been forced to flee into neighbouring countries, polio rates had leapt by 400%, less than 30% of the country's children were at school and malnutrition was visibly affecting huge numbers of people.

HIV/AIDS is not immediately visible in these circumstances; its impact will be felt, and seen, long after the war ends, not only in the DRC, but in all those countries which have become embroiled in its tragedy, for whatever reason, in pursuit of whatever interest.

The struggle between war and peace in the DRC has, in fact, heightened interest on the "economic causes" of conflict, and in the case of the DRC, as with Sierra Leone, the UN has examined the role played by mineral extraction in causing or prolonging conflict. On April 16, 2001, a UN panel of experts claimed that some of the states at war in the DRC were guilty of plundering the country's mineral riches and should have sanctions applied against them.

What have not yet received close scrutiny are reports, circulating in New York at the end of 2000, that the officers of one foreign army fighting in the DRC were using illegal diamond wealth to purchase the antiretroviral drug, AZT, which they had flown to them from suppliers in South Africa.

With the deployment of UN peacekeepers and renewed efforts to find a political solution to the conflicting interests in Africa's Great Lakes region, perhaps the DRC's tragedy can finally be surmounted and point the way forward for Africa, in ways that include a responsible focus on HIV/AIDS, the economy of war, and the need for a legitimate security sector. All of these are intertwined.

Conclusion

The noted American bacteriologist Hans Zinsser, who was involved in fighting the typhus epidemics which killed millions in Eastern Europe between 1914 and 1923, was convinced that soldiers rarely win wars, they more often mop up after the barrage of epidemics.

HIV/AIDS is a major element of this barrage in our time, and it is one which is mopping up, infecting, the soldiers and policemen of Africa. In his statement to the UN Security Council's special session on AIDS,

Peter Piot made the point that military and police forces well-trained in HIV prevention and behaviour change could be a "tremendous force for prevention."⁽¹⁸⁾

At this time, they appear to constitute a tremendous force for infection, and as such, are weakening the state's structures and capacity to protect the people and foster development, putting themselves at risk, along with the countries and peoples of Africa. And this risk extends to countries, like Canada, which are engaged with Africa in so many ways.

The UN Secretary General has urged that more resources be made available to "fight" AIDS, and he has referred to evidence that Africa is trying to help itself, and should, therefore, be more readily helped by others. There are steps which outside intervenors can take, beyond donating to a global fund, which would impact on the security sector in the face of the AIDS crisis.

What these should be must be dealt with elsewhere, but it would appear reasonable for donors to review any programming in Security Sector Reform, (SSR) for Africa; it might be soon evident that such programming is being vitiated by the impact of HIV/AIDS, which might point to the necessity to give enhanced priority to those countries which have undertaken to adopt SC 1308 and are actually doing so. In addition, co-financing of training and awareness, to make armed forces and police units more effective as "change agents" on HIV/AIDS, to encourage them to be the "tremendous force for prevention" cited by Peter Piot, would be feasible for donor countries and would fall within their overall commitment to the promotion of Human Security in Africa.

SC 1308 appeals for more training, and the UN Secretary General is requested, under the terms of the resolution, to take further steps in the provision of training for peacekeepers. Canada may be called on to play a role, particularly as it has developed, at Cornwallis Park, Nova Scotia, an institution for training peacekeepers.

Secondly, it is widely understood in the ranks of UNAIDS that civil society is key to awareness about HIV/AIDS and the building of sustainable strategies for prevention. Canada, which is steadily becoming a serious SSR provider, is encouraging partnerships between the security sector and civil society, and demonstrating this partnership in action as a characteristic of Canada's approach may soon be a critical element of AIDS/SSR programming by donors.

Third, increased and targeted "early warning," which is already a feature of Canadian humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding, might soon be a reality. Canadian interests might be less at risk if this results in enhanced contact maintained with UNAIDS, national governments and security sector agencies, and civil society in African countries, particularly where Canada has marked interests, or is considering the deployment of peacekeepers or peacebuilders.

Finally, no one wants to encourage any African army to occupy a foreign country to plunder mineral wealth. Certainly no one wants to encourage the officers of such an army to pursue that wealth in order to hold AIDS at bay. But so far none of the donor countries have gone so far, for example, as to provide AZT and other anti-AIDS drugs to those security sectors in Africa genuinely embarked on SSR as a means of ensuring that the reform will not be undermined by HIV/AIDS, and the human security of the people enhanced through the effective and legitimate functioning of the security sector. Perhaps, given the fact that the issue is beginning to command sustained and high-level attention, this might happen soon and encourage soldiers, police officers, and security intelligence agents to welcome the embrace of SSR in preference to the lure of conflict and incursion for profit, or a foray into another country or in the civil domain on their own. The picture, therefore, is by no means altogether bleak.

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1. Kofi Annan, "Mobilization Plus a Global Fund to Combat AIDS", International Herald Tribune, April 27, 2001

2. Claire Bisseker, "Africa's Military Time Bomb", Financial Mail, Johannesburg, 11 December, 1998

3. National Intelligence Council, "The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United States", NIE 99-17D, Washington, January 2000.

4. Ibid.

5. UNAIDS Press Release, "Experts Meet to Discuss AIDS and Security", 8 December 2000.

6. "HIV/AIDS: Implications for Poverty Reduction", UNDP, New York, June 26, 2001.

7. Kofi Annan, "Mobilization Plus a Global Fund to Combat Aids", International Herald Tribune, New york, April 27, 2001.

8. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF, June 26, 2001.

9. Op. cit.

10. "Africa's Military Time Bomb", Financial Mail, Johannesburg, 11 December, 1998.

11. Justice Africa/InterAfrica Group, Who Fights? Who Cares?: War and Humanitarian Action in Africa, p. 4, Africa World Press, Asmara, Eritrea, 2000.

12. UNAIDS, "AIDS becoming Africa's Top Human Security Issue, UN Warns", Press Release 2000, New York, January 10, 2000.

13. UNAIDS Press Release, New York, January 10, 2000.

14. War injects Aids into Sierra Leone, Freetown, May 21, 2001.

15. BBC News, Africa, "Nigerian Army Salutes Aids Cure", 18 January, 2001.

16. Op. cit.

17. BBC News, Africa, "Congo report denounced", May 4, 2001.

18. Op. cit.

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