30,000 Serbs Rally, Mourn Dead, Oppose Leader : Yugoslav breakup: Anti-Communist speakers call for a general strike to oust President Milosevic.

More than 30,000 Serbs rallied on Monday to mourn those killed in the Yugoslav war and to denounce Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic for steering the republic to ruin and isolation.

Leaders of the growing anti-Communist opposition called for a general strike to oust Milosevic from power and accused him of transforming Serbia into a huge, volatile armed camp. They demanded new elections and many chanted support for restoration of the Serbian monarchy.

While the gathering was the largest anti-government demonstration since Milosevic and his Socialist Party swept republic elections in December, 1990, the turnout was a disappointment for organizers who had expected a massive outpouring of anger.

Speakers also appeared unwilling to criticize the war against Croatia, which has been the cause of Serbia’s decline from prosperity within Yugoslavia to one of Eastern Europe’s poorest, most hopeless states.

The protesters railed against the looming economic catastrophe but offered little to persuade those disaffected with Milosevic to expect a change of leadership to improve their lot.

“Let factories and companies stop work. Let pupils and students stop going to classes,” Vuk Draskovic, the charismatic leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, appealed to those gathered on the vast grounds of St. Sava’s Orthodox Church. “Let Serbia be a frozen country, and let a great silence reign for several days.”

Draskovic gave no date for the start of his proposed republic-wide strike.

The relatively low turnout at the demonstration was attributed in part to official threats of a crackdown. The usually gridlocked streets of the capital were virtually empty Monday, and many parents kept children home from school, fearing the Serbian-controlled federal army would make good on its vow to crush any outbreak of violence.

Riot police and water cannons were positioned throughout the city. But no attempts were made to prevent people from attending the rally at Belgrade’s main cathedral.

Monday was chosen for the protest because it was the anniversary of a deadly clash in Belgrade last March 9, when security forces loyal to Milosevic beat demonstrators gathered to protest media censorship, triggering riots that were quelled by troops and tanks. Two died in the melee, setting off a week of street rallies that cracked the Serbian president’s facade of invincibility.

Draskovic, the chief organizer of Monday’s memorial, lashed out at Milosevic for Serbia’s losses in the war with Croatia but cautiously avoided denouncing the conflict itself. Many in the crowd sported camouflage clothing and World War II-era Serbian nationalist symbols--evidence of continued support for fellow Serbs in Croatia.

“They took us to war under the banner of ‘All Serbs in One State.’ But after all the deaths and atrocities, they try to tell us now that they won the war,” said Draskovic, referring to the ruling Socialists. “The great victory of this Serbian regime is symbolized by the necessity of U.N. troops in parts of Croatia.”

The United Nations has launched its first-ever peacekeeping mission on the Continent in Yugoslavia, and the commanders of the force expected to reach 14,000 by next month arrived in Belgrade on the eve of the rally.

The crowd jeered Milosevic for abandoning the Serbian cause by agreeing to let rebel Serbs in Croatia be protected by the U.N. “Blue Helmets,” on condition that Serbian guerrillas and federal soldiers withdraw from Croatia.

Draskovic and leaders of more than a dozen other opposition parties blamed Milosevic’s Serbian Socialist Party for the economic ruin in Serbia, reminding those gathered that they could no longer withdraw foreign currency from the collapsed banking system and that Serbia has been economically ostracized by the 12-nation European Community.

“We don’t have a single friend in the world,” Draskovic said in the key speech of the rally. “Never in our history have we been put in such a ghetto as we are in now.”

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, led a memorial ceremony at St. Sava’s for the estimated 10,000 killed in Yugoslavia since war broke out last June.

“Each drop of blood that has been shed was the blood of brothers, and each killing was fratricide,” said the patriarch, who is believed to have fallen out with Milosevic in recent weeks.

Milosevic was to have joined leaders of the five other current and former Yugoslav republics for peace talks in Brussels. But he was reported to have suffered a slight head injury in a weekend car accident and was said by the Tanjug news agency to be unable to travel for the talks.

The peace conference had been stalled since November, when Milosevic refused to attend any more sessions while the Western alliance was considering recognition of breakaway Slovenia and Croatia. The EC extended diplomatic ties to the two republics on Jan. 15.

Lord Carrington, a former British foreign secretary and chairman of the EC talks on Yugoslavia, said at a news conference after Monday’s session that EC recognition of two other secessionist republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, is only a matter of time. Only Serbia and Montenegro remain in the crumbled Yugoslav federation.

The EC-mediated talks also addressed future economic relations and minority issues among the six republics and tensions among the three ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Times staff writer Joel Havemann in Brussels contributed to this report.