Zimbabwe on Saturday accused the West of waging biological warfare to deliberately start a cholera epidemic that has killed hundreds of people and sickened thousands. The spread of the disease has focused the world's attention on the spectacular collapse of the southern African nation, which often blames its troubles on the West.The claims in state media came the same day the government issued an official announcement detailing the constitutional amendment creating the post of prime minister. The announcement also set out other changes necessary to go forward with a power-sharing agreement that has been stalled since September.
Saturday's unilateral step by President Robert Mugabe's government could raise political tensions in the battered southern African country.
| The state-run Herald newspaper said comments by the U.S. ambassador that the U.S. had been preparing for the cholera outbreak raised suspicions that it was responsible. |
After the first cholera cases, U.S. and other aid workers braced for the waterborne disease to spread quickly in an economically ravaged country where the sewage system and medical care have fallen apart. Zimbabwe also faces a hunger crisis, the world's highest inflation and shortages of both the most basic necessities and the cash to buy them.
The Herald quoted the information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, as blaming cholera on "serious biological chemical war ... a genocidal onslaught on the people of Zimbabwe by the British."
"Cholera is a calculated racist terrorist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial power which has enlisted support from its American and Western allies so that they invade the country," Ndlovu was quoted as saying.
Experts blame the epidemic on Zimbabwe's economic collapse. The World Health Organization said Friday the death toll was 792 and that the number of cholera cases that have been reported since the outbreak began in August was 16,700. The epidemic has reached a fatality rate of 4.7 percent. To be under control it would have to be less than 1 percent, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said Friday.
Aid agencies have warned that the outbreak could worsen with the onset of the rainy season and that the disease has already spread to Zimbabwe's neighbors.
Mugabe claimed Thursday that his government, with the help of international agencies, had contained the epidemic. That sparked accusations he was out of touch with his people's suffering.