Serbs vent ire on Kosovo and Western backers

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Protesters took to the streets in key Serb centers across the Balkans on Monday to vent their anger at Kosovo's declaration of independence a day earlier.

A march by several thousand people in Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serb Republic, turned violent as protesters -- who demanded their own independence from Bosnia -- threw stones at the U.S., French and German consulates.

"Kosovo is Serbian", "Serbia is one joint state", read placards they carried. They chanted "Kill, Kill Shiptars", a pejorative name for Albanians, and praised Ratko Mladic, the indicted war crimes fugitive who led Bosnian Serbs in the 1992-95 war against Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

The protests there fizzled out before France became the first major country to recognize Kosovo but police in the Serbian capital Belgrade, where various marches were planned later in the day, were on alert.

Earlier, some 7,000 people gathered in Republic Square, the heart of the capital, carrying Serbian flags and singing anti-Albanian slogans.

"This country is getting smaller and smaller. We are marching to show that we're against it," said Jelena, 24, a student who added Serbs could not abandon their religious heritage in Kosovo, home to many ancient Orthodox monasteries.

Some of the demonstrators raised their hands in a Nazi salute, but most sang anti-Albanian slogans.

The march was more peaceful than the night before when rioters pelted the U.S. embassy with stones and attacked the mission of current European Union president Slovenia, that have both backed Kosovan secession.

Smaller protests took place around Serbia, with some McDonalds outlets and a few Albanian-owned shops vandalized.

Several thousand people gathered in the Kosovo Serb stronghold of Mitrovica, a flashpoint for Serb-Albanian violence since the 1998-99 war.

They shouted "Kosovo is Serbia" and marched to the bridge across the River Ibar that divides them from the Albanian south of the town. French NATO troops have had concrete and razor-wire barriers ready for days to close the bridge if necessary.

In the Serb monastery enclave of Gracanica, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo called on the province's 120,000 minority Serbs not to leave.

"Serbs in Kosovo should stay on their land, around their holy sites and the graves of their forefathers. Only if we leave this holy land will it stop being forever Serb," Bishop Artemije told the crowd. "Kosovo can never be anything but forever Serb."

Hardline Kosovo Serb leader Marko Jaksic, an ally of Serb Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, called on the Serbian government to commit to defending its people in the territory.

"Serbia has to decide whether it wants to use its army to defend to defend Serbs in Kosovo if they are attacked by Albanians," he told the crowd.