By JARED KOTLER
 Associated Press Writer

 BOGOTA, Colombia -- (AP) -- Former Culture Minister Consuelo Araujo, the wife of Colombia's inspector-general, has been found shot to death, six days after being kidnapped by leftist rebels, family members said Sunday.

 The body of the 62-year-old Araujo was found near the northern town of Valledupar. President Andres Pastrana called the family Saturday night to let them known the body had been discovered, said a family member who did not want to be identified for security reasons.

 The killing of the high-profile figure puts in jeopardy peace talks that President Andres Pastrana initiated three years ago with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
 Colombia, or FARC. While the talks have produced few results, the rebels have been accused of abuses including kidnappings, extortion, murder and drug trafficking.

 Araujo, a popular figure, was Pastrana's culture minister and the wife of Inspector-General Edgardo Mayo, who leads a watchdog branch in charge investigations of
 government officials.

 She was also a friend of Nobel Literature Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, also Colombian, and for years had organized Colombia's main music festival, which is held in Valledupar.

 Authorities and witnesses said the FARC kidnapped Araujo and 10 others at a roadblock on a rural road outside Valledupar, about 420 miles (675 kilometers) north of Bogota, last Monday. Most of the others had been freed soon after the mass abduction.

 Security forces have been trying to find Araujo since then in the mountainous region near the Caribbean coast.

 Impatience with the FARC, which has been fighting a 37-year war against a succession of U.S.-backed governments, has been increasing.

 On Saturday, FARC rebels wielding AK-47s and submachine guns blocked a peaceful caravan from entering their safe haven, forcing leading presidential candidate
 Horacio Serpa to call off a demonstration aimed at demanding rebel peace concessions.

 Pastrana called the rebel blockade of the convoy a blow to the peace process and said he had instructed his peace envoy to seek an immediate meeting with the FARC.

 The president was to have gone on Sunday to the safe haven, but canceled the trip late Saturday. Pastrana's government ceded the Switzerland-sized zone to the rebels in 1998 to launch peace negotiations.

 ``With its attitude, the FARC is putting in doubt its word and its desire for peace,'' said Pastrana, before the announcement of the discovery of Araujo's body.

 The caravan was heading to San Vicente, the main town inside the FARC's southern stronghold, where Serpa had planned to deliver a speech.

 FARC chief Manuel Marulanda had accused Serpa of using the march to gain votes in the next year's presidential election, which is shaping up as a referendum on a
 peace process that many Colombians have grown disillusioned with. Pastrana is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term.

                                    © 2001