By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (Reuter) - U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said on Thursday that too many governments, defying world trends toward democracy, still ruled by coercion rather than popular consent.

Addressing a U.N. committee, she pointed to Burma, Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Cuba, Burundi, Afghanistan and the Balkans, among others, which are under scrutiny by the General Assembly and other bodies for human right abuses.

But she also said Washington remained concerned about China's sentencing of prominent dissidents and its heavy-handedness in Tibet. China, a permanent member of the Security Council, has not been targeted by the U.N. assembly.

She said "the United States will continue to speak out in the area of human rights issues involving China in the future."

Calling the 20th century the "bloodiest century in human history," she said nations had to be aware not to repeat its horrors as the 21st century drew near.

Burma, for example, exhibited "a kind of rolling repression that ebbs and flows" with "each little opening succeeded by a crackdown."

Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and her national League for Democracy were prevented from convening a party congress and she was recently harassed by "thugs who could not have acted without official support," Albright said.

She said the General Assembly should call for a genuine dialogue, for the release of political prisoners and an end to forced labour.

The Clinton administration was recently criticised by five U.S. senators from both parties for not making good on its threat to ban U.S. investments in Burma. Otherwise efforts to isolate the government would fail, they said.

In Afghanistan's civil war, she said human rights have been abused by almost every party to the fighting. Women and girls have been vicitimized by "draconian social decrees" issued by the Taleban faction, which controls Kabul.

"As the former Soviet Union learned the hard way, Afghans can be ferocious and determined fighters; their physical courage is unquestioned," she said. "What is required now is the moral courage needed to end the fighting and establish a broad-based government."

On other countries, Albright said:

Iraq: Saddam Hussein's government was the "most brutal and lawless on earth" and did not hesitate to torture and terrorise the Iraqi people, suppress civil and religious dissent and murder those suspected of opposing him.

Iran: U.N. reports indicate that summary execution, arbitrary detention, supression of civil liberties and religious freedom are still prevalent.

Sudan: Reports continue on torture, slavery, arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and interference with human rights. While both sides in the country's civil war are to blame, the government merits particular censure for bombing civilians and allegedly using cluster bombs.

Nigeria: The military government has not yet fulfilled promises for a transition to democracy and respect for human rights. The current electoral process is being manipulated to limit participation. Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the presumed winner of the 1993 military elections, is still in jail.