Bulletin

Issue: July 2005

News

HIV/AIDS: threat to Australia’s security?

La Trobe University politics researcher, Dr Michael O’Keefe, is researching when and why Australia should use military force in international affairs.

Toward this end he has been researching HIV/AIDS as a security issue with La Trobe Professor of Politics, Dennis Altman.

Dr O’Keefe recently co-edited Righteous Violence: The Ethics and Politics of Military Intervention (Melbourne University Press 2005) with Professor Tony Coady from the University of Melbourne.

The book focuses on philosophical and practical dilemmas of humanitarian intervention. A chapter by Dr O’Keefe concentrates on Australia’s intervention in the South Pacific. In it he argues that the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Papua New Guinea endangers Australia’s security.

A specialist in defence strategy and security, Dr O’Keefe says the relationship between security and the epidemic is an increasingly important aspect of Australian intervention in the South Pacific.

The Government’s primary concern is that ‘state failure’, as well as causing local suffering, will also impact on regional stability with failing states (or ‘fragile’ states as he prefers to call them) providing havens for terrorists, trans-national criminals and people smugglers.

However, Dr O’Keefe is critical of the credibility of the Government’s focus on terrorist threats emanating from the region, saying this focus on terrorism obscures more serious internal challenges to regional states.

He argues that the HIV/AIDS epidemic probably poses a greater challenge. The ability to moderate its effect on our neighbours’ economies, social welfare and security is one of his prime concerns.

‘Australia has increasingly acknowledged its responsibility to protect the sovereignty of PNG and the welfare of its people. Glib references in the media to Australia playing the role of America’s “Deputy Sheriff” in the South Pacific do no justice to our motives for intervention,’ he said.

‘The epidemic has the potential to devastate PNG society and undermine the state. Combating the epidemic in our nearest neighbour is likely to consume more and more resources and test our ability to provide effective aid.

‘If Australia is to limit the spiralling human and financial cost of the epidemic in PNG, understanding the vicious circle between the epidemic and state failure requires greater attention.

‘The ability of Australia and other nations and NGOs to recognise and alleviate the problems of HIV/AIDS is hampered by poor access to the sources of information driving decision-making.’

To help overcome this, Dr O’Keefe is collaborating with Professor Altman who recently returned to La Trobe after six months at Harvard as Professor of Australian Studies.

Dr O’Keefe has been working on an ARC linkage grant titled Asia/Pacific HIV/AIDS Database: Support for Regional Policy Research which is co-ordinated by Professor Altman.

The consortium supporting the project has involved collaboration between 12 universities and industry partners. One of the first initiatives of the program was the creation of the website ‘hivpolicy.org’ which is assembling a database of HIV policies in Asia and the Pacific.

It has been designed to provide up-to-date information to individuals, government and NGOs working on the issue. It was officially launched during the Seventh International Congress on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific from 1-5 July in Kobe, Japan.

As part of the AIDS and security research program, Professor Altman and Dr O’Keefe are also organising a two-day workshop in October for Australian and overseas academics and practitioners to discuss the complex relationship between fragile states and human security. Grants from the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and UNESCO have funded the workshop.

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