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UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4, 1999 -- Yugoslavia has protested to the United Nations over plans by its representative in Kosovo to carry out a census, saying this would be a recognition of the "ethnic cleansing" of non-Albanians.
"It is only too obvious that the basic conditions for such an important undertaking are nonexistent," Yugoslav U.N. envoy Vladislav Jovanovic said in a letter to the president of the Security Council circulated on Wednesday.
"The terror of Albanian separatists continues unabated and the violence against, and the ethnic cleansing of, Serbs, Montenegrins, Roma and other non-Albanians has not stopped," he said.
Jovanovic said more than 250,000 non-Albanians had been driven out of Kosovo and over 200,000 foreign nationals had entered the Serbian province illegally.
He said this was due to inadequate border protection by the NATO-led international force and the U.N. interim administration in Kosovo that the Security Council authorized in June after an 11-week NATO air campaign to force Yugoslavia to halt repression of the Kosovo Albanians.
Jovanovic said current conditions in Kosovo "do not warrant a fair registration and would amount to a recognition of the fait accompli and further encouragement of the separatism, violence and terrorism of Albanian extremists."
He said the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities had the correct data for the period prior to the arrival of the U.N. administration and were in a position to "carry out a regular registration" once conditions for it had been created.
It was the sovereign prerogative of every state to issue identification documents, he said, adding that U.N. plans for a census were in direct contravention of a Security Council resolution that reaffirmed Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.