John W. Olver: “I hope in that process, I think everyone hopes in that process, if an agreement can be reached, that it will be possible…”

“I hope in that process, I think everyone hopes in that process, if an agreement can be reached, that it will be possible to see if those people can live together, can live and coexist together. After all that has gone on, all of the repression of the Albanian ethnic majority, now 93 percent of the population of Kosovo is Albanian ethnic citizens of the origination of Yugoslavia, from some time ago, whose autonomy was taken away, and the very policies that Milosevic has followed has led to more Serbs leaving Kosovo. So it is 93 percent Albanian. But I think also, now, in the last year of the 20th century, we ought to look at this century and see that early in this century there was a peaceful divorce of two nations put together, two peoples put together by an agreement that had been made after a war earlier. The Swedes and the Norwegians in 1905, they peacefully divorced. Not a single person was killed in that process. At the end of this century, we have seen the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They were united. There was no separated sovereignty, there was only one sovereignty. They decided to peacefully divorce, and there was not a single person killed in that process. We should be seeking ways of developing a peaceful divorce here, if that is what it comes to, and if it is clear that those people cannot live together peacefully and in fairness and in justice, which is what clearly we are trying to have 3 years to be able to develop over a period of time.”