GENEVA (Reuter) - The main United Nations human rights forum approached the end of its annual session on Friday having let China off the hook again, but determined to step up investigations in Africa, particularly Nigeria and Zaire.

The 53-member forum approved a raft of resolutions condemning traditional transgressors including Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq and Israel. It sent the toughest message to Indonesia to curb its alleged abuses in East Timor since a 1993 motion.

For the first time, the U.N. Human Rights Commission formally urged states to consider abolishing capital punishment.

But the human rights group Amnesty International, in a statement, slammed the body for sidestepping abuses elsewhere.

"During its session, the Commission confronted Indonesia about violations in East Timor and appointed a special rapporteur on Nigeria. But once again, major human rights violators including Algeria, China and Turkey escaped scrutiny by the U.N. primary human rights body."

For the seventh year in a row, China averted censure despite alleged repression and Western concern for political prisoners.

"China exploited the divisions within the Western Group to its own advantage to avoid a vote on a draft resolution mildly critical of its human rights record, Amnesty said.

Amnesty accused some member states, who this year backed away from co-sponsoring a Western resolution on China, of having bowed to commercial interests. Denmark presented a motion which Beijing's delegation succeeded in quashing.

"France's decision to block European Union consensus on China earned it applause from the Chinese government and confirmation of lucrative business contracts," Amnesty said. "With millions of dollars on the line, any commitment to human rights principles just faded away."

"For now, China has suppressed Commission scrutiny. This diplomatic victory was achieved through threats and bullying tactics and because countries like Australia, Canada, France, Gernmany, Greece, Italy and Spain put business before human rights," the group added.

A Western diplomat put a brave face on the defeat, commenting: "China's tactics were counter-productive and brought more attention to the wretched state of human rights in China than in the past."

Turning to Africa's Great Lakes region, Amnesty said the Commission was "almost irrelevant" in the face of "some of the worst human rights abuses since the Second World War."

Yet the forum adopted a resolution urging Zaire's rebels and the government to support a U.N. investigation into alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees and civilians in the east.

Roberto Garreton, U.N. human rights investigator for Zaire, has accused the Tutsi-dominated rebels of massacring thousands of civilians and Rwandan Hutu refugees since December.

The resolution asked Garreton and the U.N. investigator on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to investigate the massacres and report to the General Assembly by June 30.

"Two points stand out from this Commission: the appointment of a special rapporteur (investigator) on the situation of human rights in Nigeria, and the issue of the death penalty is now on the U.N. human rights agenda for the first time," John Mills, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva, told Reuters.

The Commission appointed its first-ever special investigator into allegations of major abuses in Nigeria, including arbitrary detentions and executions.

The resolution called on Lagos to guarantee fundamental freedoms and release "all prisoners, trade union leaders, human rights advocates and journalists currently detained."

Nigeria drew outrage in November 1995 when it hanged Ken Saro Wiwa and eight Ogoni minority rights activists after their conviction for the 1994 murder of four pro-government tribal chiefs. Activists fear that 19 Ogoni leaders, detained on the same charges, will be swiftly tried and meet the same fate.

Regarding the death penalty, the United States was the only Western nation to vote against the motion presented by Italy, while Britain was the only European Union member to abstain.