AMBASSADOR MAISTO PAYS HIS RESPECTS TO ONE OF THE ASSASSINATED AMERICANS, 1999-03-09 (photo)

U.S. ambassador to Venezuela John Maisto (C) pays his respect to one of the three American human rights activists assassinated last week as the coffin is carried by Venezuelan soldiers in the Carlota military base before being transferred to a funeral home in Caracas, March 8. The three Americans, kidnapped in Colombia and later killed, were at the center of a long-running dispute between a U.S. multinational corporation and an Indian tribe and Marxist rebels, over stakes that include billions of dollars in oil. The trio had been helping U'wa Indians in their campaign to stop Occidental Petroleum Corp. from drilling on ancestral lands, tipped to harbour one of Colombia's largest ever oil finds. The Americans were abducted February 25 in Colombia and their bullet-riddled corpses found March 4 in southeastern Venezuela. KW/HB/CLH/