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BELGRADE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A Serbian opposition leader urged the commanders of the NATO-led KFOR force in Kosovo on Sunday to come up with a way of protecting Serbs in the province within 10 days or hand in their resignations.
The strong-worded statement by Vladan Batic, coordinator of Serbia's pro-Western Alliance for Change, was part of a sudden chorus of condemnation of the treatment of Serbs in Kosovo from the government and opposition alike.
``Instead of protecting Serbs, they glorify leaders of the KLA (the separatist ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army) and turn them into legends,'' a statement from Batic's Christian Democratic Party said.
The flood of criticism of NATO follows an exodus of Serbs from Kosovo since the deployment of the alliance-led force. The United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR said last week the province was now ``almost Serb-free.''
The criticism also has a domestic political context, since opposition politicians are engaged in a fierce struggle to oust Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who has fought back by accusing them of being NATO lackeys.
The state news agency Tanjug, a mouthpiece for Milosevic, focused its latest criticism on Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. Balkans envoy who is visiting Kosovo in his new role as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
``The American ambassador...did not think it worth mentioning the mass exodus of Serbs and other non-Albanian population from Kosovo, which came after KFOR arrived,'' Tanjug said.
At a news briefing on Saturday, Holbrooke said KFOR was in Kosovo to create a security environment in which deep differences between Serbs and Albanians could be ironed out in a non-violent way, without going into details.
``I have an instinctive feeling that KFOR is doing such a good job that all these issues are manageable,'' he said, while also underlining that many problems remained.
Almost a million ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo before the replacement of Yugoslav security forces by NATO troops in June made most feel safe enough to go back, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has said.
Yugoslav authorities say almost 200,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians, who are heavily outnumbered by the Albanians, have left Kosovo since KFOR moved in.
Slobodan Vuksanovic, deputy leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said on Friday KFOR had clearly not fulfilled its task of protecting the whole Kosovo population.
``KFOR has assumed the role of the silent observer of Albanian terror of Serbs,'' he told a news conference.
Tanjug also criticised Holbrooke for not mentioning what it said was the recent discovery of a mass grave containing 50 Serb bodies near Gnjilane, southern Kosovo.
The agency announced the discovery last week, citing an unnamed U.N. policeman, but its report has yet to be confirmed.