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Some 3 million of Germany's expellees were uprooted from the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia seized by Hitler in 1938. The power of those old passions was demonstrated when Vaclav Havel, shortly before he was elected President of Czechoslovakia, observed that in a spirit of reconciliation the country might offer an apology to the ethnic Germans who were forced out of their Sudetenland homes after the war. Communist hard-liners in Czechoslovakia spotted the mischief potential in that comment and made sure everyone knew what Havel had said. Sure enough, outraged demonstrators marched in Prague demanding that no apology be given, and Havel's organization, the Civic Forum, had to announce that none was planned.
Yugoslavia, composed entirely of ethnic minorities, broke from Moscow in 1948 but was held tightly together by its forceful first President, Josip Broz Tito. Since his death in 1980, ties among the country's six republics and two autonomous regions have loosened, and an ambitious Serbian nationalist, Slobodan Milosevic, has become wildly popular among his fellow Serbs. But his ) strident chauvinism and the rest of the federation's fears of the Serbs, who account for more than 8 million of Yugoslavia's 24 million people, could be pushing the country toward disintegration. Milosevic has reasserted Serbian control over Kosovo, the historic cradle of Serbian culture and religion but today an autonomous enclave where 90% of the 1.9 million population is Albanian. In the process, he has touched off violent riots and alienated much of the rest of Yugoslavia.
The northern Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, fearful of rising Serbian hegemony, voted in September to confirm its right to secede. By banning a rally of Serbs in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana last month, the province's Communist leader, Milan Kucan, has become a local hero. Communist Party officials from around the country began meeting last weekend in Belgrade to discuss and possibly approve the creation of a multiparty system for April elections and an end to the Communist monopoly on power. Opponents of the plan predicted it would produce parties that would foster local nationalism and trigger the breakup of the nation. Jelena Milojevic, head of the Yugoslav Socialist Alliance, vowed that Communist youth organizations would oppose "chauvinistic and separatist groups." Said she, in a statement that could apply to much of the region: "Self-proclaimed leaders blinded by hatred are appearing from the darkness of the past and using any means in their struggle for power."
Pope John Paul II, who was born in Poland, has called for "vigilance," warning that "conflicts between ethnic minorities can be rekindled and nationalistic feelings can be exacerbated." The European Community, Japan and the U.S. can help relieve the ethnic pressures with economic cooperation and technical-aid programs. At a two-day meeting in Paris last week, representatives of 27 Western nations laid the groundwork for a $12 billion development bank to channel loans to emerging private businesses in the Warsaw Pact countries. But money without artful diplomacy will not completely exorcise the ghostly rivalries that increasingly haunt Eastern Europe.