MIAMI, April 22 (Reuters) - A leading Cuban exile organization has attacked a United Nations commission vote on Cuba's human rights record as a "disgrace to humanity.''
The Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, a powerful lobbying group with a strong voice in U.S. policy toward Cuba, said in a statement issued late on Tuesday that "the cause of human rights in the world has just been set back thirty years.''
The United Nations Human Rights Commission voted on Tuesday to remove Cuba from a list of countries under special scrutiny for human rights abuses.
"This unconscionable action is a disgrace to humanity,'' CANF chairman Alberto Hernandez said in the statement. "Cynicism and politics again reign supreme at the U.N. human rights commission as they did in the darkest days of the Cold War.''
The U.N. commission decided by a vote of 19 countries against and 16 in favor to reject a U.S. motion criticizing Cuba's human rights record. The defeat ended seven years of U.S.-led censure by the 53-member body and ended the mandate of the commission's special investigator into rights on the island.
Cuba's communist authorities celebrated the vote as a historic triumph against the United States.
CANF criticized the U.S. government for a lack of leadership in Geneva, where the Human Rights Commission meets.
"Clearly a strong measure of responsibility lies with the current administration, which obviously did not provide the type of leadership in Geneva that we have seen in recent years,'' Hernandez said. "It certainly raises troubling questions about their commitment to U.S. policy and freedom for the Cuban people.
CANF called for reappointment of the Special Rapporteur to monitor human rights in Cuba. REUTERS
11:00 04-22-98