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I apologize.

I come here to learn: It's obviously still too early to graduate.

"Raise your hand if you don't have a separatist in your house," Italy's leading daily, Corriere della Sera, wrote. "The domino effect is terrifying many central governments."

Bye bye southern California and some of Arizona.

In addition, European leaders are disenchanted by Kosovo's failure, in the last nine years, to build state institutions, to create a viable economy and to rein in flourishing criminal enterprises.

Most of Kosovo's leaders are former guerrilla fighters with little experience in governing; more than two-thirds of the work force is unemployed; and people are mired in poverty, despite contributions from Europe of many billions of dollars.

PRAGUE - Czech diplomat Jiri Dienstbier assessed that that only solution for Kosovo is decentralization, that is, the forming of self-governing districts by ethnic groups, whereas "gifted" independence would only represent a risk for all of Europe.

In a commentary published today in the Prague daily "Pravo", Diensbier assessed that, in the event of independence, the extremists would not be content just with Kosovo.

"UNMIK chief consoles himself that the Albanian leaders have condemned violence," writes the former human rights rapporteur for the former Yugoslavia, adding that these condemnations, however, cover "only attacks on international forces, civil and religious objects but not on Serbs".

In an article entitled "Picking up the pieces in Kosovo - What will happen next in the region?" Dienstbier reminds that six years ago Ibrahim Rugova ensured him that the Kosovo Albanians would protect the non-Albanian population and common historical heritage.

"How would he protect anything when under UN administration and with troops under the command of NATO one quarter million Serbs, Roma, Croats, Bosniacs and Gorans were expelled?" asks Diensbier, adding that "the quiet intellectual Rugova would be unlikely to survive independence".

The Czech diplomat further warns that "for the extremists, independence is a base for international trade in drugs, women, for human and goods smuggling of every kind and the long-term expansion of their power into all areas inhabited by Albanians in Macedonia, southern Serbia, in Montenegro."

In Greece, too, "where the Olympics is to be held, there are also 100,000 Albanians", he reminds and assesses that it is necessary to start from the beginning and differently.

"Probably the only way of building a civil society is gradual drawing nearer, decentralization and forming of self-governmeing districts by ethnic groups whose security will be guaranteed by the UN and KFOR," proposed Dienstbier on the pages of the Czech daily.

The explanation of many world politicians that this would lead to the ethnic partition of Kosovo is rejected by Dienstbier who comments that "due to the inactivity and incompetence (of the international administration), the partition already occurred a long time ago", whereas decentralization would only mean "creating conditons for the restoration of normal human contacts".