By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - A key United Nations panel rebuked Belarus and Myanmar, formerly Burma, on Wednesday for human rights abuses amid a growing debate about whether any country should be named and shamed for rights violations. The Belarus resolution, introduced by the United States, was passed by a vote of 70 to 31 with 67 abstentions by a General Assembly committee handling human rights. Its adoption is tantamount to official passage by the full assembly. The resolution faulted the Minsk government for rigged elections last March, suppressing dissent, arresting dissidents and obstructing opposition candidates. Belarus in turn unsuccessfully sought a resolution against the United States, expressing "dismay" at voting irregularities, detentions at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and listing criticisms by U.S. civil rights groups on abrogation of liberties under legislation to combat terror. That measure received six positive votes and 114 against with 45 abstentions. The six voting in favor were Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Syria as well as Belarus. But several countries, including Egypt and Algeria, said they voted "no," mainly because they disagreed with any country-specific resolutions -- with the exception of Israel because it was an occupying power. Belarus and Uzbekistan last week were successful in getting a measure passed that discouraged U.N. human rights bodies from adopting resolutions condemning violations in a specific country. Belarus' U.N. Ambassador Andrei Dapkiunas said he introduced the resolution on a matter of principle to emphasize double standards. He said the rich attempted to ostracize individual countries, especially the United States which he said was "responsible for gross manipulation of human rights in Guantanamo and the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq." 'STEADY DETERIORATION' U.S. envoy Richard Terrell Miller said the resolution against Belarus was necessary because of a "steady deterioration of human rights" with seriously flawed elections and the use of state power against opposition candidates. Miller defended the United States by saying some issues mentioned in the resolution were familiar to delegates because of intense investigation and reporting in the U.S. press. "These very processes, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary" clearly distinguished the United States from the sponsor of the draft resolution, Miller said. The committee on Tuesday adopted a resolution on rights abuses in Iran and an earlier one on North Korea. But Uzbekistan managed to get the panel to kill a resolution on Monday that would have faulted its for arbitrary arrests and locking up dissidents and activists in psychiatric wards. On Wednesday, the committee also rebuked Myanmar, formerly Burma, in a resolution passed by a vote of 70 to 28 with 63 abstentions. The document said the country's government refused to investigate widespread human rights violations, such as summary executions, torture, forced labor, sexual violence and recruitment of child soldiers. The resolution singled out attacks by the military on villages in Kayin States and other ethnic provinces, harassment and arrest of student leaders and the continuing house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and her deputy Tin Oo, leaders of the opposition Nation League for Democracy. Myanmar has long been criticized by U.N. human rights bodies for its military leadership that refused to acknowledge San Suu Kyi's overwhelming victory at the polls in 1990. The United States asked the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pressure Myanmar to stop jailing political opponents and flooding the region with refugees.
