By Jonathan Fowler
The Associated Press

GENEVA -- A resolution presented Wednesday to the top U.N. human rights body does not include a condemnation of Cuba's record, a rare move that
immediately drew protests from rights campaigners.

The activist groups charged that just last week Cuba arrested scores of dissidents, accusing them of conspiring with American diplomats in Cuba to encourage
opposition to the communist government.

The annual meeting of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission has censured the communist island for its lack of democracy and free speech every year over
the past decade except 1998.

But in wording that will likely draw U.S. protest as well, the draft measure produced by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay simply asks Cuba to accept a
visit by a U.N. monitor appointed earlier this year by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Censure by the U.N. body brings no penalties but draws international attention to a country's rights record.

A spokesman for the U.S. mission to U.N. European offices in Geneva said only that the United States supported the efforts of the sponsoring nations to address
the human rights situation in Cuba.

In Cuba, at least 75 people, including independent journalists, been arrested since the crackdown was launched last week, according to the Cuban Commission on
Human Rights and Reconciliation.

The arrests were made "while the international community has been preoccupied with Iraq," Rory Mungoven, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, said.

The European Union on Wednesday condemned the crackdown against political dissidents in Cuba and called for their immediate release.

In Havana, the wives of several arrested anti-government activists visited their husbands Wednesday and said they appeared to be in good health.

Cuba insists its rights record is good. It says it respects human rights by guaranteeing its people broad social services such as free health care and education, and
that rich nations that fail to protect the poor are in no position to preach.

"The United States needs a resolution against Cuba like a fish needs water," Perez Roque, the foreign minister, told reporters in Geneva last week.

Washington is running out of ways to justify its 40-year-old embargo against Cuba, which most other nations oppose, he said.

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