By Erica Bulman
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 1999; 4:13 p.m. EST

GENEVA (AP) -- The United States should clean up its own human rights record before pressing other countries to do the same, a top Cuban official said Wednesday during a U.N. meeting.

The comments by Vice President Carlos Lage to the U.N. Human Rights Commission come as Cuba faces renewed criticism for a crackdown on dissidents.

At last year's meeting, the 53-nation commission voted down a U.S.-backed measure to condemn Cuba and keep the country under special scrutiny. It was the first time since 1991 such a motion had failed to pass.

Lage said U.S. human rights failures include police brutality against blacks, Hispanics and immigrants. He also accused the United States of enforcing the death penalty ``quite easily'' but ``hardly ever against a purely Aryan blood white national.''

U.S. official Neal Walsh shrugged off Lage's accusations as ``vintage Cold War rhetoric.''

``I think that the fact that thousands of Cubans continue to risk their lives to flee the current state of civil, economic, social and cultural rights underscores the unreality of the vice president's statement,'' he said.