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BELGRADE, Oct 28, 1999 -- Yugoslav Information Minister Goran Matic slammed Thursday the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR, accusing them of failing to provide security in the province.
Matic said that "Kosovo's multi-ethnicity was lost" after KFOR entered the province in mid-June following the withdrawal of Belgrade troops at the end of an 11-week NATO bombing campaign this spring.
"If the United Nations continue to apply the UN Security Council resolution this way, only KFOR and UNMIK will be multi-ethnic in the province," Matic told reporters here.
Matic, the top official of the neo-communist Yugoslav Left of Mira Markovic, the wife of President Slobodan Milosevic, said that the level of "violence in Kosovo is now higher than ever."
"Despite the presence of 40,000 KFOR soldiers in the last four months, all those, Albanians, Serbs or others, who have fought for multi-ethnic Kosovo have become victims of the Albanian terrorists," Matic said.
Since the arrival of KFOR troops in mid-June, "400 people were killed and 600 were kidnapped in the province," Matic said, adding that top JUL official Dzafer Djuka "was killed by the Albanian terrorists only days after KFOR came."
"This is the clear example of the situation in Kosovo nowadays and of what it will become," Matic said.
"We demand full respect of the UN resolution and soon return of the Yugoslav security forces to Kosovo, as previewed by the military-technical agreement" reached between Belgrade and NATO, Matic said.
An estimated 200,000 Serbs and non-Albanians have left Kosovo after the withdrawal of Belgrade troops and the arrival of KFOR in the province, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).