HARARE, Dec 13, (AFP) -US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to hold talks next week with the UN on Zimbabwe, as Harare blamed Britain for a “genocidal” cholera outbreak and President Robert Mugabe ignored mounting calls to quit.
Rice will visit New York on Monday and Tuesday to discuss among other things the political deadlock in Zimbabwe, ravaged by a meltdown and a humanitarian crisis, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
But Mugabe's government struck a combative tone as the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the death toll had risen to 792, and aid groups warned the epidemic could last for months.
“Cholera is a calculated, racist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial power, which has enlisted support from its American and Western allies so that they can invade the country,” Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.
“The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is a serious biological, chemical war force, a genocidal onslaught, on the people of Zimbabwe by the British,” he said. “It's a genocide of our people.”One day earlier, Mugabe had proclaimed in a nationally broadcast speech that “there is no cholera” -- comments his spokesman George Charamba later said were meant as “sarcasm.” |
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