Rhodesian CBW use took place toward the end of Rhodesia's protracted struggle against a growing African nationalist insurgency in the late 1970s.
The genesis of the Rhodesian CBW effort emerged as a result of a deteriorating security situation that developed following Mozambique's independence from Portuguese colonial rule.
The Prime Minister in consultation with his War Cabinet[1][page needed]—delegated responsibility to the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), and implementation was assigned to the Special Branch liaison component in the Selous Scouts.
Although they were aware of the CBW program's existence, the full extent to which the Rhodesian political and military leadership was involved is unclear due to the lack of documented material or living witnesses.
Once authorized, Rhodesian CBW experiments at the Selous Scout "fort" in Bindura date from sometime in 1976, and operations almost certainly began by late 1976.
According to members of the Rhodesian CBW team, they began to poison clothing in April 1977 and contaminate food, beverages, and medicines in May/June 1977.
[1][page needed] First, the effort aimed to eliminate guerrillas operating inside Rhodesia through contaminated supplies either provided by contact men, recovered from hidden caches, or stolen from rural stores.
[11] A number of writers have accused the Rhodesian Government of intentionally distributing B. anthracis in western Rhodesia, causing an anthrax outbreak in the country from 1978 to 1984 with 10,738 human cases and 200 fatalities.