By Brendan Kolbay
RIO DULCE, Guatemala (Reuters) - Four Belgian tourists wereset to spend a second night in the Guatemalan jungle ashostages of a mob of peasant farmers on Saturday, asauthorities tried to secure their release.
The two couples were seized along with two Guatemalanguides on Friday as they travelled up a river near theCaribbean coast by farmers angry over the arrest of a localMayan leader. The farmers took them upriver and held themovernight.
A leader of the indigenous farmers' group told Guatemalanradio on Saturday the six hostages would be held untilPresident Alvaro Colom agreed to talk to them.
A government spokesman said he believed the group wasunharmed and that officials were negotiating with their captorsby telephone while police and troops hunted for them on foot.
"There are two groups of police and armed forces searchingthe area to try and find the hostages," said Ronaldo Robles,chief spokesman for the president's office.
"We have recently made contact with them and we are innegotiations to liberate the hostages," he said.
The six captives were believed to be hidden in dense junglenear the town of Rio Dulce, named after the remote, emeraldgreen river they were travelling up when hundreds of farmerssurrounded their small motor boat.
The same group of farmers briefly held 29 policemen hostagein February demanding the release of Ramiro Choc, a communityleader whose supporters say he is fighting for land rights.
Close to half of Guatemala's population are indigenouspeasants, many of them landless, who often occupy land to carryout subsistence farming.
"We have the tourists in a safe place," farmers' leaderJuana Caal told Guatemalan radio. "We will not let them gountil there is a dialogue with the president or the vicepresident."
The Belgian consulate said on Friday the Guatemalan navywas sending a ship up the river to look for the vacationers.
One of the tourists told Guatemalan radio by cell phone onFriday they were not hurt, and one of the tour guides saidtheir captors had taken them further up river.
Land disputes were one of the catalysts for Guatemala's1960-1996 civil war between leftist guerrillas and thegovernment, which left around 250,000 people dead or missing.
Colom, who took office in January, has vowed to reducepoverty and violence.
(Additional reporting by Herbert Hernandez in GuatemalaCity; Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Eric Walsh)
