World's worst outbreak of anthrax
Was it germ warfare?
By Elijah Crane
As the anthrax scare continues to dominate the news in the
U.S., there is a glaring omission in the media discussion of
this disease. No mention is being made of the worst epidemic of
anthrax ever documented.
It occurred in what was then white-ruled Rhodesia, toward
the end of the struggle of the Black majority for independence.
It is very likely that the outbreak was the result of germ
warfare.
Meryl Nass, M.D., one of the foremost experts on anthrax in
the United States, analyzed the outbreak in an article in the
Winter 1992-93 issue of CovertAction magazine.
More recently, allegations concerning the role of South
Africa's apartheid regime in providing Rhodesia with anthrax
were investigated by the ANC government's Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
The revolution for the independence of the country, now
called Zimbabwe, ended in February 1980. From 1978 to December
1980, the anthrax epizootic--an epidemic that involves more
than one species--raged in the African-owned Tribal Trust
Lands. Some 10,738 Black people were reported infected with the
disease. Of these, 182 died. The loss of thousands of cattle
created a critical food shortage for the survivors.
The white population of Rhodesia remained unscathed.
Many more cattle than humans were infected in Zimbabwe
during that period, yet it was almost entirely African-owned
cattle that got sick. Just four small outbreaks, affecting only
11 animals, touched the white-owned commercial farms.
In the 29 years prior to this outbreak, Zim babwe had a low
incidence of anthrax: a total of only 334 cases of human
anthrax had been reported in that country. And until that time,
"about 7,000 cases [were] reported in the world annually,"
according to "Mandell's Principles and Practice of Infectious
Disease," published in 1979.
Anthrax is not passed directly from person to person or
animal to animal--aside from the consumption of infected meat.
Epizootics are generally limited, both geographically and in
time. They usually occur in areas previously infected where
spores have remained in the soil. But that didn't happen in
Zimbabwe. The fact that the anthrax epizootic raged across six
of the eight provinces of Zimbabwe is one indication of
possible biological warfare against the Black population.
Rhodesia had the capability
Nass explained that the Rhodesian government, and its
partner, apartheid South Africa, were capable of such an act.
"There is evidence that obtaining or producing spores was
within the means of those countries which wanted them.
Production of spores is not technically difficult. Japan, the
U.K., and the U.S. produced them as long as 50 years ago.
"The U.S. is known to have created and stored such weapons
until they were destroyed following Nixon's 1969 ban." But, she
added, "A number of biological wea pons was found in a CIA
freezer after all U.S. biological weapons were reported to have
been destroyed, ostensibly stored by a CIA employee without
higher approval.
"Given the scope of foreign involvement with Rhodesia, the
white government may have received the weapons from a country
which had a secret program. It is also possible that Rhodesia
was able to produce such materials domestically.
"Many delivery systems for anthrax spores are relatively
simple to produce or procure. They could have allowed for the
careful demarcation between affected and unaffected areas which
was exhibited by the Zimbabwe epizootic. The simplest method of
dissemination would have been by air, but other methods for
contaminating the soil were also possible."
On the issue of transmission and infection, Nass
explained:
"In Zimbabwe, where 'protected villages' existed in many
parts of the country (which entailed the creation of new
population centers by removal of Blacks from their rural farms
to regulated areas) and the movement of rural Blacks was in
some areas strictly controlled, it may have been possible to
accomplish airborne spraying and yet avoid populated
areas."
According to the Web site for PBS's Frontline, Zimbabwe's
current Minister of Health, Dr. Timothy Stamp, has ordered an
investigation into whether South Africa was involved in
Rhodesia's anthrax outbreak.
Secret war began under Ian Smith
Back in 1965, then-Rhodesia had declared independence from
Britain in order to maintain white minority rule while other
British colonies in Africa were gaining independence. The
struggle for liberation in Zimbabwe began in the late 1950s and
continued through 1979.
As guerrilla forces gained strength in numbers and
experience, the racist white regime, headed by Ian Smith,
turned to a secret war in hopes of defeating the nationalist
movement. The CIA played an active role.
The white minority Rhodesian government created its own
intelligence agency--the Central Intelligence Organization. The
purpose of the CIO, headed by Ken Flower, was to break up the
African Nationalist struggle. They escalated their secret war,
employing psychological warfare and torture on captured freedom
fighters and infiltrating the two liberation organizations,
ZANU and ZAPU.
Modern-day paramilitary operations in Central and South
America are based on this model of warfare created by the white
apartheid regime of Rhodesia, with the backing of apartheid
South Africa. The paramilitary forces in Colombia utilize these
same techniques against the FARC-EP and the ELN.
In the peasant villages, CIO forces, with the "help" of
captured guerillas, would pretend to be from either ZANU or
ZAPU. These agents would then abuse the villagers in the name
of the struggle, calling them "sellouts" and even executing
some of the revolution's most loyal supporters. This created an
atmosphere of distrust that hampered the fight for
liberation.
The white commercial farmers rationed out food to the
peasant workers, allowing them only one day's portion at a
time. This prevented them from being able to supply the
liberation fighters with sustenance.
They further disrupted life for the rural population by
contaminating their livestock, thus destroying their
livelihoods, destabilizing and limiting their food
supplies.
The creation of an anthrax epizootic would have benefited
the white colonizers of Zimbabwe not only by demoralizing the
rural supporters of the liberation struggle, but also by
starving them out and impoverishing their communities.
One way to ensure contamination in specific areas would be
aerial spraying. The Rhodesian government began air raids on
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) training
camps in Zimbabwe and Mozambique in October 1978. One month
later the anthrax epizootic began.
Nass wrote that clothing had been distributed to the people
which was poisoned with organophosphates--nerve gas--which
killed hundreds of Black guerrilla fighters as well as
civilians.
The anthrax epizootic of Zimbabwe has not been subjected to
a careful scientific analysis including necessary testing,
studies and evaluation. Part of the reason for this is that
there exists no "generally accepted methodology to serve as a
guide for the design of an investigation into the possible use
of biological weapons," according to Nass. By their very
nature, chemical and biological weaponry use is very hard to
prove. The spores of anthrax are invisible to the eye unless in
large quantity.
All the available evidence pointed to the Rhodesian
government as the culprit in spreading the anthrax epizootic to
Black rural areas as an attempt to crush the revolution there.
But the apartheid regime was unable to crush the determination
of the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle for
independence.
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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