ITALIAN SPLIT-UP PRESSED : SEPARATIST DRAWS 10,000 IN VENICE.

Byline: Daniel J. Wakin Associated Press

As thousands of followers cheered, secession leader Umberto Bossi declared northern Italy an independent nation Sunday in his sharpest challenge yet to the country's political establishment.

``We peoples of Padania solemnly proclaim: Padania is an independent and sovereign federal republic,'' said Bossi, using the name he would give to an independent north.

The declaration was only a symbolic gesture, marking a dramatic finale to three days of rallies for secession and against the Rome-based government, which Bossi accuses of oppressing and exploiting Italy's comparatively wealthy north.

Bossi leads the Northern League party, which emerged in the early 1990s as a powerful force in the north's wealthy, industrialized regions, including Venice, Treviso, Milan, Bergamo and Brescia.

Polls show only a small minority of northern Italians favor secession. By police estimate, 10,000 supporters turned out to hear Bossi's declaration of independence, the biggest crowd yet in the three days of protests.

Landing near Venice's Grand Canal in a catamaran, Bossi somberly read out a declaration that condemned the Italian state for ``colonial oppression, economic exploitation and moral violence'' and for using the north's resources for ``Mafia-like welfare for the south.''

Earlier Sunday, Premier Romano Prodi spoke elsewhere in northern Italy and declared that ``unity and autonomy must travel together in our country.''

Scores of events leading up to Bossi's declaration were held in cities and towns along the Po River, which runs through the rich industrial and agricultural heartland of northern Italy.

``I feel free of Rome,'' said Andrea Dalla Vecchia, 21, who came from nearby Vicenza to see Bossi in Venice, where more than 4,000 police watched the crowds.

Leftist Mayor Massimo Cacciari had urged citizens to stay home. Boos and catcalls went up from League followers when a woman draped an Italian flag from a window overlooking the rally. She responded with a rude gesture and left the banner hanging.

A major counter demonstration organized in Milan by the National Alliance drew some 100,000 people, who waved Italian flags and listened to the national anthem.

Shoving broke out at another counter demonstration. A parliamentary deputy was injured during the shoving in the lagoon city of Chioggia.

Bossi announced the creation of a ``national guard of Padania.'' The League already had a green-shirted security force, an ugly reminder for some Italians of the black-shirted thugs who flourished under Fascist rule.

Bossi is under investigation by several prosecutors for allegedly threatening public officials. He has called for a tax boycott, northerners-only unions and the removal of southerners from government jobs.

His comments have drawn the ire of the government and parties on the left and the right.

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PHOTO Umberto Bossi exhorts for northern regions to secedefrom Italy.

Associated Press