Both in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and in Kosovo in the 1990s, crises began as ethnic conflicts and then escalated into demands for national sovereignty. But this is where the parallel ends. While it existed, Czechoslovakia was a democratic state that strove for the peaceful coexistence of its several constituent ethnic groups. In addition, the Germans in Czechoslovakia had their minority rights anchored in the Versailles Treaty. Shortly before the Munich treaty was signed, President Benes accepted a form of German autonomy that bordered on state sovereignty.
International circumstances are radically different now.
The Munich treaty did not intend to solve an ethnic conflict in a peaceful way. From the very beginning it was understood by Germany as a part of the process that would eventually undo the settlements of World War I and lead to the rise of a New Europe under German hegemony. Benes understood the treatys consequences rather well, and thus he had more foresight than many other Western politicians. In sum, the analogy between Munich and Kosovo crumbles at its foundation, as does the parallel between Milosevic and Benes. But the experience of the event known in the Czech lands as the Munich treason is deeply engraved in the national memory, and it has undoubtedly shaped the way in which the Czech public has understood the Kosovo crisis and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.