Hanoi. A Lao exile group welcomed the adoption of a resolution by the US House of Representatives calling on Laos to improve its human rights record and stop alleged violence against ethnic Hmong rebels.

Resolution 402, which was introduced by Republican congressman Dan Burton, was passed Thursday despite resistance from the US State Department, which has argued constructive engagement with the communist regime is the best approach.

However, the Paris-based Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) said it represented "a step forward for freedom, democracy and respect for human rights" in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

"The LMHR very much welcomes this resolution, approved by 408 votes, with one vote against," it said in a statement.

The resolution calls on the Lao government to end its persecution of Hmong rebels, to allow human rights monitors into the country, to release all political and religious prisoners and to allow multi-party democracy.

The LMHR said the US Congress and the administration should remain vigilant and take further action if the Lao government does not act in accordance with the resolution.

The group also called on donor countries "to accentuate their pressure, including economic, on the Lao totalitarian regime, so that the calls from the American congressmen can be heard and human rights fully respected in Laos".

Critics of the Lao regime have accused its military of practicing "Kosovo-like" ethnic cleansing on Hmong guerrillas.

Small bands of ethnic minority rebels, predominantly Hmong, are a hangover from the CIA-sponsored guerrilla army mobilized to wage Washington's secret campaign in Laos during the Vietnam War.

Some 300,000 Hmong fled to Thailand after the communist takeover in Laos in 1975, but the remaining rebels have continued a low-level, ineffective insurgency for nearly three decades.

The Lao military has been accused by human rights groups of using heavy-handed and often brutal tactics to eliminate them once and for all. The Vientiane government has denied the accusations.

Hundreds of rebels and their families reportedly surrendered after government troops surrounded several northern holdouts in late February.