Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Why the Czechs believe Kosovo should be divided

UPI has an article about how divided Europe is about Kosovo. The official position is that the question should be resolved by negotiations. However, Slovenia has already spoken out for an independent Kosovo. On the other hand Spain, Greece and Italy seem reluctant to make Kosovo independent.

Most interesting is the position of the Czech Republic, that wants to split Kosovo along ethnic lines. It should be remembered that the Czechs managed the breakup of Czecho-Slowakia without violence, so they know what they speak about. And this splitup did involve border changes.

In a discussion paper Mikulas Fabry described this split as follows: "After the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993, for instance, Czech and Slovak officials worked out a settlement in which they swapped four disputed hamlets and held plebiscites in two border villages after their inhabitants had protested at being left on the wrong side. To foreclose the search for diplomatic consensus on some issues may in truth bring more harm than good."