Zimbabwe's embattled leadership accused Britain yesterday of using a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 600 people as the cover for a foreign invasion of the country.

A government spokesman, George Charamba, labelled Gordon Brown “mad” for calling on world powers to join together and tell Zimbabwe's veteran President, Robert Mugabe, that “enough is enough”.

“I don't know what this mad Prime Minister [Brown] is talking about ... It has to do with regime change politics. He is asking for an invasion of Zimbabwe,” he said.

The state-run Sunday Mail newspaper, which often runs vitriolic articles blaming the former colonial power for Zimbabwe's current chaos, quoted Mr Charamba as saying that he noted how the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, had been speaking about an invasion of Zimbabwe. “Brown's call is supposed to cap it all. We think this owes to serious challenges Brown is facing at home. He has the temerity to call the Zimbabwe Government ‘a blood-thirsty regime'. This is from a Prime Minister who is killing daily in Iraq ... and Afghanistan.”

Times Archive, 1983: And now the real Mugabe stands up

His elegance of speech, and gentleness of manner, have deceived many in the West

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In a clear bid to try to blunt the impact of statements from leading Africans, such as Desmond Tutu, the Nobel peace laureate, and the Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, calling for an end to the Mugabe years, the paper said they had been forced to adopt that position by the West.

A group of influential international elder statesmen including Nelson Mandela's wife, Graça Machel, said yesterday that Mr Mugabe's Government was not capable of leading the country out of its crisis.

The Elders group, headed by the former US President Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, in a report released in Paris, called for more international help for Zimbabwe's hungry and sick.

The Archbishop of York has also joined the growing chorus of calls for President Mugabe to go. Writing in The Observer, Dr John Sentamu said that Mr Mugabe should be taken to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr Odinga, already one of the continent's most vocal critics of Mr Mugabe, repeated his view that foreign troops should prepare to intervene in Zimbabwe to end the worsening crisis.

In a break with Africa's tradition of solidarity with former liberation struggle leaders, the Kenyan leader also said that Mr Mugabe should be investigated for crimes against humanity, an assertion certain to trigger a bitter row within the African Union, (AU) which is battling to stop international investigations of Sudan's leaders over the Darfur crisis.

Mr Odinga said that if no troops were available, then the African Union “must allow the UN to send its forces into Zimbabwe with immediate effect, to take over control of the country and ensure urgent humanitarian assistance to the people dying of cholera.” he said.

Mr Odinga said Mr Mugabe had reduced a once prosperous country to a basket case. He said:“Mugabe's case deserves no less than investigations by the International Criminal Court at The Hague.”

At least a quarter of Zimbabwe's population has fled the country and many of those who remain are surviving on leaves and roots.

The head of the UN Children's Fund in Zimbabwe said yesterday that he feared a possible 60,000 cholera cases in the coming weeks, which could bring the number of deaths to around 2,700.

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