Barcelona, July 08: Policymakers at the international AIDS conference here say the disease's relentless March is posing a major challenge to the nation-state system. A decade or so from now, they suggest, the ravaging economic toll and social stress caused by aids could drive some of the worst-hit countries into anarchy and civil war. Like Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and, until just recently, Afghanistan, such countries could join the ranks of non-states -- nations that exist in name and on paper and maybe have a UN seat but have no government worthy of the name, no rule of law or any economy beyond a black market. In contrast to so-called rogue states, whose authoritarian leaders can be coaxed or cowed by the big powers into toeing the line, non-states are dangerous because they have no coherent leader. Such places are not only a seething pit of discontent and dislocation. They also become a haven for drugs barons, international criminals on the run -- and, as Afghanistan showed, international terrorist groups.
Senior US officials say Washington is worried that some countries could become non-states unless urgent action is taken, or a sudden cure found, to blunt the AIDS scythe.
Secretary for health Tommy Thompson said, “ The US was earmarking more than 16 billion dollars a year to fight aids and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), primarily on humanitarian grounds and because it's the right thing to do."
"But we also realise fully that unless we do something, there are countries that are going to be very unstable in the future because of the decimation this terrible disease is going to raise in those countries," he said.

Bureau Report