Potential Hot Spots: August 9, 2000

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Corsica, an island off the south French coast, has been in a state of rebellion for the last three decades. The violence has been low key, with a bombing now and then, usually without casualties. The French propose to solve the problem by granting Corsica considerable autonomy. But the underlying problems are worse. First, there is always the Union Corse (Corsican organized crime) angle. While there were many Corsican nationalists, the real muscle in the "movement" were the mobsters looking for their chance. And the big beef was, as it had been for thousands of years; foreigners (French in this case) coming in and taking over. So the autonomy is a ploy to get the Corsicans to fight among themselves and leave Paris alone. Won't work. Tito tried the same thing with Kosovo in the 1960s and look where that ended up. Corsica could still blow up, and if it is in the form of trying to expel French speakers from Italian speaking Corsica, things could really get rough.

 

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