HARARE, Zimbabwe — 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.
The statement 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 United States had been preparing for the cholera outbreak raised suspicions that it was responsible. The Zimbabwean government’s stranglehold on most sources of news makes such rhetoric an important tool for a regime struggling to hold onto power.
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.
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.
The World Health Organization said Friday that 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.
