Expert: AIDS Could Breed Africa Terrorism

Africa could become the next breeding ground for international terrorist groups like al-Qaeda if the continent is unsuccessful in its fight against HIV/AIDS, said Dan Mozena, who last week finished a three-year tour as deputy chief of mission in Zambia. Mozena becomes director of the office of Southern African Affairs at the State Department in mid-August. "If they lose the war on AIDS, everything else doesn't matter," Mozena said Tuesday.

Mozena said the United States' main goal in Zambia, where 21.5 percent of the population is HIV-infected, is fighting AIDS. The disease has orphaned around 850,000 children in the country, Mozena said, adding that he frequently spoke with orphaned street children and visited villages devastated by HIV/AIDS. Life expectancy in Zambia, where close to 380 people die daily of AIDS, has dropped from 52 years in 1981 to just 35 years.

The devastation caused by AIDS leaves the south African nation vulnerable to political instability, said Mozena, a former Peace Corps volunteer. He also warned that ignoring the epidemic could have a more significant impact on the American public than terrorism. "If the AIDS epidemic keeps sweeping across Africa, it will come washing up on our shore as well, in ways we cannot know."

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