Zimbabwe's bulldozing of urban slums has been carried out in "an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering," the United Nations said in a report to be released today.
"The government is collectively responsible for what has happened," the report found, according to excerpts. "The people and government of Zimbabwe should hold to account those responsible for the injury caused by the operation."
The report, commissioned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, breaks the relative silence in the United Nations over President Robert Mugabe's policy of evicting hundreds of thousands of people.
Western nations have unsuccessfully tried to put the issue on the UN Security Council's agenda.
The report by Tanzanian Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, the executive director of the Nairobi-based UN-Habitat, said that some 700,000 people had lost either their homes or their livelihoods or both as a result of the razing of the shantytowns.
An additional 2.4 million people have in one way or another been affected by the demolitions, according to the report.
Zimbabwe has called on the international community to help it rebuild housing. It said sanctions were partly to blame for the conditions that drove residents to construct the illegal housing.
Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the United Nations, said Mr Mugabe's government now wanted the international community to help it reconstruct.
"They can raise funding so that government can provide cheaper housing to needy people. One would call upon Britain and the European Union to stop their campaign to vilify our economy," Mr Chidyausiku said.
"Were it not for their sanctions, our economy wouldn't be where it is today . . . the international community should, therefore, consider themselves equal partners and have a role to play in terms of pulling resources together to build a better Zimbabwe."