By Richard Waddington, Reuters

 GENEVA -- The United Nations' top human rights body kept up the pressure on Cuba yesterday
 over its rights record by urging the communist state to accept a visit by a UN envoy to investigate
 alleged abuses.

 But the 53-state Human Rights Commission spurned a tougher resolution from Costa Rica,
 supported by Washington and the European Union, demanding freedom for about 75 dissidents
 recently handed lengthy jail terms on the Caribbean island.

 The approved text, presented by four L atin American nations -- Peru, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and
 Uruguay -- called on Cuba to accept a commission decision taken last year that the envoy should
 visit. Cuba so far has declined to let French magistrate Christine Chanet into the country. It says the
 UN should focus instead on the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where Washington is holding
 people in its investigation of global terrorism.

 Mexico, one of 11 countries on the commission supporting the call for the envoy's visit, said the
 ''procedural'' measure is aimed merely at winning cooperation from Cuba, where Marxist leader
 Fidel Castro has run a one-party state for more than 40 years.

 ''The Mexican vote will be consistent with its principles not to condemn or to criticize Cuba,'' said
 Mariclaire Acosta, Mexico's deputy minister for human rights and democracy.

 But Cuba, which sees the vote as interference in its domestic affairs, lashed out at the four Latin
 American countries behind the resolution, calling them ''disgusting lackeys'' who had bowed to
 ''shameful'' pressure from Washington. ''The sole object has been to concoct a pretext to justify the
 genocidal blockade and policies of aggression that the United States has practiced for 40 years,''
 ambassador Jorge Ivan Mora Godoy told the commission before the vote.

 Votes on Cuba are among the most politically charged at the annual meetings of the 53-state
 commission, with Latin American countries, even those most closely aligned with Washington,
 feeling that they have to tread carefully. Argentina and Brazil both abstained, while Venezuela
 joined Cuba in voting against the motion. It was approved by 24 votes to 20, with nine abstentions.

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