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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct 8 (AFP) - Even by the rough-and-tumble standards of Kosovo Albanian politics, last weekend's commentary from the Kosovapress news agency was pushing the envelope.
Veton Surroi, urbane publisher of Kosovo's best-known newspaper Koha Ditore, was virtually a Serb sympathizer "with a sold-out soul" who "stinks of Slav," the commentary said.
His feisty editor, Baton Haxhiu, was not much better -- a like-minded collaborator guilty of "idiotic delirium" and of "shouting and raging against the new political class of Kosovo."
Both, it said, deserved to face the UN war crimes tribunal with "the chief criminal Slobodan Milosevic ... they deserve a place for themselves in the garbage of history."
Then came the kicker.
"Those who don't mind stepping over the blood of those who made freedom in Kosovo and who offend deeply the Albanian essence and spirit, should know that they could become subjects of an eventual and very understandable revenge," it said.
Was that a death threat? A fatwa? People wondered.
In any event, the commentary might have gone no further than Kosovapress' Internet site (http://www.kosovapress.com), had it not been republished in full, by Surroi and Haxhiu, in Kohe Ditore (also on the web at http://www.kohaditore.com).
They said they put it in print to make a point.
"It's the most brutal thing we've seen so far," Surroi told AFP at an aptly-timed conference in Pristina on developing a free and fair press in Kosovo, at which the commentary was a surefire topic for debate.
"It certainly reflects a totalitarian mentality, and that's what we are afraid of," he said.
Kosovapress editors taking part in the conference argued they could not be responsible for what appeared under their writers' bylines, conference participants said afterwards.
Haxhiu, across the table, replied that he would sue Kosovapress for defamation. The only problem, he said, was that Kosovo has yet to develop a judicial system that would enable him to do so.
Kosovo was put under UN administration in June, after NATO's 11-week air war against Yugoslavia ended direct Serbian rule in the mainly ethnic Albanian province. Free media is a prime goal of the international peace effort.
(During the NATO bombing Surroi went into hiding inside Kosovo; Haxhiu fled to Macedonia where, with other refugees, he put out an exile edition of the newspaper.)
At its weekly meeting, the Kosovo Transitional Council, an inter-ethnic group that is supposed to help UN administrator Bernard Kouchner run the province, weighed in with a measured denounciation of extreme language in the media.
"These abuses constitute an assault on the freedom of the press, on the process of normalisation in Kosovo as well as on the development of democratic life in Kosovo," it said, without specifically mentioning the Kosovapress article.
As it happens, in the small world of Kosovo politics, Surroi sits on the council. But he did not attend Wednesday's meeting, having sent his excuses beforehand so that he could attend the media conference.
But another member who was present was Hashim Thaci, prime minister of the self-styled but influentual "provisional government of Kosovo" that emerged in February during the failed Rambouillet peace talks.
Thaci was political leader of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and Kosovapress is close to his camp, which is establishing a political party to fight elections due as early as next year.
Surroi, who is resisting pressure to enter politics, fell out with ethnic Albanian hardliners in August when, in an editorial, he lashed out at revenge attacks on Serbs, of whom about 170 have died violently since June and two-thirds have quit Kosovo altogether.
Such violence, he said, "is more than simply an emotional reaction" on the part of Kosovo Albanians suddenly free from the repressive policies of Milosevic, who is the Yugoslav president, and his security forces.
"It is the organized and systematic intimidation of all Serbs simply because they are Serbs," he said. "Such attitudes are fascist... The treatment of Kosovo's Serbs brings shame on all Kosovo Albanians."