Consuelo Araújo

The murder, at the age of 61, of the journalist and former Colombian culture minister Consuelo Araújo Noguera, at the hands of the leftwing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), is another shocking reminder of a civil war that has seen the deaths of some 40,000 Colombians during the past 10 years.

Araújo, who was picked up with 20 people at a roadblock in Cesar province, was probably killed because she was the wife of Colombia's attorney general, Edgardo Maya.

But the outcry at her death - the authorities said she was shot in the back of the head after being dressed in rebel uniform - came from those who had known her as a tireless promoter of popular Colombian culture, a passion rewarded by her ministerial appointment in the middle of last year. She resigned earlier this year when her husband joined the government.

The youngest of nine children of a landowner and prominent local Liberal party member, Araújo was born near Valledupar, in Cesar province. From childhood, she was introduced to the turbulent world of Colombian politics, which even then involved violence and many deaths as Liberals and Conservatives fought for control of the countryside. Forced to leave school to help support her family, she established herself as a journalist specialising in the Caribbean north of Colombia, the region made famous by the novels of her great friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

For many years, Araújo wrote a regular column for the newspaper El Espectador in the capital, Bogotá, where colleagues nicknamed her La Cacica, the boss, someone who knew her own mind and was not afraid to speak it. In the 1980s, she also had a radio programme, La Cacica Comenta, in Valledupar.

But it was for her promotion of the vallenato, the popular accordion music of her native province, that Araújo was best known. The vallenato is a wild dance music with words that express the joys and sorrows of everyday life in Colombia's Caribbean north. In 1968, Araujo created the festival of the leyenda vallenata, held every April during the festival of the patron saint of Valledupar, and won acceptance for the music throughout Colombia and internationally.

She was never happier than when she was involved in running the vallenato festival. Even when I interviewed her five years ago, the bringing together of 30,000 people for a week in this small town in the middle of some of Colombia's most dangerous countryside was an extraordinary feat. The roads were often controlled by rebel fighters; the airport was patrolled by soldiers - yet, in the town, there was night after night of uninterrupted music, with problems only from lack of sleep and excessive drink.

Araújo's office, beneath the stadium where the musicians played, was the festival's hub. She had a welcome for everyone, as well as countless stories about the history of vallenato and its legendary performers. When she went on stage at four in the morning to present prizes, the deafening applause was as much for her as it was for the winning groups.

In 1997, she stood unsuccessfully for the governorship of Cesar province, but her love of the region and its exuberant culture never dimmed. A close friend, also kidnapped on September 24 but later released, told reporters that the last time she saw Araújo, she was arguing fiercely with her captors because they had set revolutionary slogans to classic vallenato songs. Colombian president Andrés Pastrana, called her killing "a vile and cowardly act".

Araújo leaves four sons and a daughter from her first marriage, to Hernando Molina Cespedes, and a son from her second marriage, to Edgardo Maya.

Consuelo Araújo Noguera, journalist and politician, born August 1 1940; died circa September 29 2001

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