Mr Mugabe, whose relations with Britain, Zimbabwe’s former colonial ruler, have been frosty for years, also accused London of “abusing its privilege and acting dishonestly” for raising his government’s slum demolition campaign in the UN Security Council.
“Is it not obvious that Britain, under the regime of Tony Blair, has ceased to respect the charter of the United Nations?” President Mugabe asked.
“Witness its being a principal member of the anti-Iraq illegal coalition that went on a devastating campaign of the country in complete defiance of the United Nations Charter.
“Any state or group of states that commits such an act of aggression on another, justifying it on blatant falsehoods, surely becomes guilty of state terrorism,” he said.
In a dig at the United States, Mr Mugabe said “imperialist countries have remained silent about the shocking circumstances of obvious state neglect surrounding the tragic Gulf (of Mexico) coast disaster.”
“A whole community of mainly non-whites was deliberately abandoned to the ravages of Hurrican Katrina as sacrificial lambs,” he said.
As Mr Mugabe spoke, only junior diplomats occupied the British and US assembly seats.
Last July, after a two-week fact-finding visit by UN special envoy Anna Tibaijuka, the UN released a scathing report charging that Harare’s shantytown demolition drive had left 700,000 Zimbabweans homeless and destitute and affected a further 2.4 million.
The US is planning on slapping more sanctions on the Mugabe government.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said the U.S. Treasury was putting the final touches to an order that would bar Mugabe, his senior officials and their families from visiting the United States.
“We are continuing to try to call attention to the human rights abuses, that the last election was not fair and that there was not a level playing field there,” Frazer, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.