COLUMBIA'S BULLFIGHTING CAMPAIGNS

WITH his tight trousers and boots, Luis Miguel Castrillion is dressed to kill as he prances, feints and pirouettes around a charging bull.

The crowd applauds, but for animal rights campaigners in Columbia, the bullfighter is a cruel killer.

Applause swelled around Bogota's arena for the past month as Castrllon and other matadors taunted and dispatched bulls during the city's annual bullfighting festival.

But animal rights activists whose campaign is taking hold in a traditional bullfighting stronghold, point to the sparse attendances in the arena - well short of the 10,000 clamoring aficionados that once filled it for the month long-festival

Castrillon is left feeling like a frustrated and misunderstood artist. ''You put your life on the line against the bull - the animal can die and so can I - so that in the end, society sees me as a  murderer,'' lamented the 25-year old.

Increasingly, Castrillon is protected outside the arena for what he does inside it, as bull fighting  popularity wanes and campaigners grow bolder.

Two thousand were on hand to protect the festival, more than is usually mobilized for a high-risk Football match.

Bogota's city hall justified the extra security by pointing to violent demonstrations that greeted the return of the festival to Bogota last year after a four year absence, when it was banned by a leftist Mayor.

The festival has been held in Bogota's Santamaria building since 1931. But now under so much criticism that there are increasing concerns among aficionados the bullfighting could be banned altogether.

[Agencies].