BELGRADE, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Serbia launched a billboard campaign on Wednesday using images and quotations of world leaders to express its opposition to independence for Kosovo.

Posters in the capital Belgrade carry modified versions of historic quotes to justify Serbia's rejection of demands by the province's ethnic Albanian majority for their own state in Kosovo, which Serbs consider their ancient heartland.

"The time has come to show whether we are free men or slaves," says -- in Serbian -- the slightly altered version of a quotation from George Washington, next to a picture of the first U.S. president.

The United States strongly backs Kosovo's bid to clinch independence within months, as does Britain, whose World War Two prime minister Winston Churchill features on another poster, in a solemn pose against the Union Flag.

"We shall defend what is ours. We will never surrender," it reads, adapting Churchill's famous 1940 House of Commons speech on resisting Nazi Germany.

Abraham Lincoln, Charles de Gaulle, Willie Brandt and John F. Kennedy all have their own posters.

Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO expelled Serb forces accused of killing Albanian civilians while fighting separatist rebels.

Serbia has offered autonomy for the province, but Kosovo's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority demands independence.

International mediators are due to deliver a report to the U.N. by Monday on 18 months of talks that failed to find a compromise. Kosovo is expected to declare independence in early 2008 with the promise of recognition from the United States and most European Union countries.

Serbia's Ministry for Kosovo said the quotes were chosen as they illustrate "the need to protect and defend the national interests of democratic societies in crucial historic moments".

"The attitudes of these statesmen were crucial to the forming of ... values upon which the modern societies of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany are built."

The Ministry could not specify if the campaign would be launched in other countries, or only in Serbia. (Reporting by Ksenija Prodanovic; Writing by Ellie Tzortzi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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