From South Africa to Uganda, AIDS is ravaging Africa's armies at a time when much of the troubled continent needs them to keep peace.
Soldiers contract it from prostitutes and infect their wives and children.
Ever since 18 American soldiers were killed during a failed peacekeeping operation in Somalia in 1993, Washington has refused to intervene militarily in Africa's conflicts, instead promoting a policy of training African soldiers to do the job. But with AIDS decimating Africa's armies, that policy may be in jeopardy. In Zimbabwe, the rate may be as high as 70 percent. Unless the spread of AIDS in African armies is checked, he warned, many military forces could be too weak to participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations. Officials say some 25.3 million Africans are living with HIV or AIDS, but there are no reliable figures on how many soldiers are infected because not all militaries test for the disease.