HIV/AIDS and Indonesia`s security

The spread of HIV/AIDS in the world can no longer be regarded only as a public health, social or economic issue because it has become a serious threat to the very security of countries.

The deadly disease now poses a grave threat to the security of many countries in Africa as shown, among other things, by the academic research reports of PW Singer of the Washington D.C-based Brookings Institution.

Singer has intelligently clarified the links of the HIV/AIDS threats to security issues in his article titled "AIDS and International Security" (Survival, vol.44, no.1 w, Spring 2002, pages145-158).

This senior fellow and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at Brookings said the AIDS could even increase the risks of wars or conflicts, and weaken a country`s military institution.

Singer`s central argument about the direct correlation of HIV/AIDS and war or conflict is rooted on the uniqueness of this virus and the military institution itself.

A number of research outcomes has even revealed that the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of military personnel is much higher than that of civilians.

During war period, the prevalence rate of the military personnel could be 50 times higher than that of civilians due to three primary factors.

Singer underlined the nature of recruitment that military institutions had commonly had was one of the contributing factors.

In this context, the military institutions always recruit the people from sexually active age groups. Then, the on-duty soldiers are deployed to areas which are far a way from their society and family.

The third factor is related to the geographical location and condition with which the deployed military personnel totally miss chances of having sexual contacts with their spouses or partners.

As a result, Singer argued that those servicemen could likely fall into the hands of prostitutes or become drug users.

In the African continent as the center of the world`s HIV/AIDS cases, the average percentage of military personnel infected by this deadly virus was 30 percent, he said.
Due to its real security threats, the United Nations and international research centers have arguably regarded the HIV/AIDS as a security issue since the year 2000.

However, this security threat has currently shadowed Indonesia. The recorded number of HIV/AIDS-infected Indonesian army personnel that Marthen Indey Hospital released last May is an evidence.

This Papuan city of Jayapura-based hospital had recorded that 144 members of the Indonesian Defence Forces (TNI) had contracted this deadly disease.

Four of them had even died, Head of the Marthen Indey Hospital Yenny Purnama said last May.

In response to this case, Tubagus Hasanuddin, member of the House of Representatives` (DPR) Commission I on foreign policy and defense, said TNI should provide its infected personnel with medical treatment.

But the TNI should discharge the TNI personnel who had contracted the disease because they would no longer be able to perform their tasks effectively.

"If they have really been infected with the HIV/AIDS viruses, they should be discharged and given medical treatment immediately," he said.

Sharing Hasanuddin`s opinion, another legislator of the House`s Commission I, Fayakhun Andriadi, wanted those servicemen not to be returned to their families before definitive medical decisions had been made about them.

"I am afraid HIV/AIDS infected servicemen who are returned to their families will infect their respective wives and children," he recently said.

The fact that a number of servicemen prove to suffer from HIV/AIDS posed a serious problem for Indonesia so that the TNI chief should not play down this case.

Instead, the military authorities need to take immediate actions to find out the root causes and resolve the problem, he said.

What Fayakhun Andriadi has asked is so logic and needs to be responded seriously by the government and military authorities because the more HIV/AIDS-infected soldiers that Indonesia has, the more vulnerable this country`s security capability will be.

As warned by PW Singer that the HIV/AIDS had indeed weakened a country socially, economically and militarily, do not let Indonesia plunge into the list of the world`s failed states due to their weakening military institutions.

[source : Antara]