TATTOOED TRIBES KEEP A VIGIL FOR KIDNAPPED CHIEF

Hammocks are slung between trees, and dozens of cooking fires smoulder.

Nearly 1,000 indigenous people have defied the Colombian government's
security warnings and are keeping a public vigil for their kidnapped
leader, Kim Pernia Domico.

Members of Colombia's 84 tribes have converged on Tierralta, in Cordoba
province, to take a stand against being drawn further into the bloody
insurgency that started 37 years ago and has killed 40,000 people in the
past decade alone.

Three suspected paramiltary gunmen on motor-scooters allegedly abducted Mr
Pernia, a 43-year-old environmental activist from the Embera Katio tribe,
on 2 June.

"I know in my heart that he is still alive," said Marta Cecilia Domico, Mr
Pernia's daughter. "If they wanted to kill him they would have done so on
the spot, like they have so many others." Marxist rebels massacred 15
villagers suspected of being paramilitary sympathisers only days before Mr
Pernia disappeared. Search groups of determined tattooed tribesmen risk
forays by raft or footpath into the surrounding territory in the hope of
finding some trace of their leader.

"We want him given back to us - dead or alive," said one tribal youth. "It
doesn't matter how long it takes." There has been no sign of Mr Pernia yet,
and no confirmation by the right-wing United Self-defence forces of
Colombia that they were behind his alleged abduction. But the
paramilitaries have been in disarray since Carlos Castano, their founder
and commander-in-chief, abruptly quit this month.

Ms Domico says she believes the paramilitaries dragged away her father to
scare the Embera Katio into silencing their protests against paramilitary
incursions. The 2,400-member tribe survives by fishing and growing bananas
and rice in a lush reservation near Tierralta, but the formerly tranquil
riverside has recently become a corridor for arms and drug smuggling. The
tribe gets caught in the crossfire from both sides. Sixteen Embera Katio
have been killed in the past two years alone. The outspoken Mr Pernia led
protest marches to Bogota, angry that his tribe became "military targets"
because of their opposition to a hydroelectric dam.

Right-wing militias have been battling against rebel guerrillas and their
collaborators in the nearby mountains for control of this strategic region,
and many are backed by local cattle ranchers. The rebels and the
paramilitaries covet the resource-rich territories granted by the
government to indigenous groups. Isolated tracts that might be used to
raise coca crops for cocaine tempt the gunmen to close in on the Indians.

Mr Pernia, who led opposition to the multinational-funded Urra Dam and then
demanded compensation when his tribal fishing waters were spoilt, was by
far the region's most prominent indigenous leader. Contractors and
businessmen were thwarted by his international appeals against the dam, and
were enraged that the tribe might end up with a corporate pay-off from
Canadian and Swedish firms when others lost money because of Mr Pernia's
stalling tactics.

Half of Colombia's formerly remote tribes, whether jungle dwellers or river
valley farmers, are now at risk of extinction, according to the Latin
American Association for Human Rights. Massacres and civil war conflict
split up families and drive indigenous communities into towns where their
tribal ways and dialects are abandoned.