BOGOTA (AP) - A Colombian indigenous leader was killed by suspected FARC terrorists, though the motives are not yet known for the assassination, the Colombian national police said on Tuesday.

The killing drove to 60 the number of murders of members of different ethnic groups in Colombia so far in 2011, according to data from the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). There were 114 killings last year, according to ONIC.

Colonel Jaime Avila, police commander in the region of Uraba, in the northwest of the country, told The Associated Press by telephone that Fabio Domicó Domicó, leader of the Embera community in that region, was killed on Saturday in a rural area of ​​Dabeiba, in the department of Antioquia, about 350 miles northwest of Bogota.

The officer said he did not know if the Indian leader had received threats as of late, but police investigating the murder attribute it to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) because they have been operating in the area.

William Carupia, president of the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia (OIA), reported that three armed men accosted Domicó, 38, as he headed down a path from home to the urban area of ​​Dabeiba.

Carupia said in a telephone interview that the attackers shot Domicó and then cut his throat. The police, however, said that an autopsy had not yet been conducted to determine the cause of death.

According to Carupia, the inhabitants of indigenous reservation Nendo - inhabited by some 280 Embera - assured him that the area where Domicó was killed in a known area where the 34th Front of the FARC operates.

"He (Domicó) was nominated for the council (municipal Dabeiba) in elections last October 30 ... at that time, the FARC were telling people not to vote ... because the candidates were paramilitaries," said Carupia.

Carupia said the FARC has tried to invade their territories to get control of natural resources such as gold and wood, and that "in our territory they also want to grow coca and illicit crops."

Evelis Luis Andrade, president of the ONIC, rejected "this murder and we demand the FARC respect the lives of our indigenous leaders of our communities."

In a telephone interview Andrade stressed that "we do not accept that they are coming to our territories to generate anxiety, distress, and violations of our rights ... The war is not ours and we need not be paying the consequences of a war that we have nothing to do with. "