NAIROBI, October 12, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan ecologist and the first African woman to win a Nobel prize, said Saturday that HIV was created deliberately in the laboratory as a biological weapon. “Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that,” she said at a press conference following the announcement of her receipt of the Nobel prize. Maathai received the prize for her environmental work in preventing deforestation in Africa.  “It’s true that there are some people who create agents to wipe out other people. If there were no such people, we could have not have invaded Iraq,” Maathai maintained, as reported by the AFP. “We invaded Iraq because we believed that Saddam Hussein had made, or was in the process of creating agents of biological warfare,” she said. “In fact it (the HIV virus) is created by a scientist for biological warfare.”“Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious,” she said.  “She said (HIV/AIDS) was invented as a bio-weapon in some laboratory in the West,” a U.S. State Department official said in response to Maathai’s claim. “We don’t agree with that.” The U.S. official pointed out that Maathai had claimed HIV was created in the lab for the purposes of population control, in a Kenyan daily Standard newspaper story published in August.  See also:  AIDS Programs based on “false” and “deadly premise” of African promiscuity http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/apr/030424a.html   Population Control Pedlars Spreading AIDS In Africa?  http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1999/apr/990415a.html   ‘Family Planning’ Groups Spreading AIDS in Africa with Depo Provera, New Study Warns http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/sep/04090803.html   tv