The Hindu : International : Colombian fighters lay down arms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 12, 2004

International

International

Colombian fighters lay down arms

Bogota: Under a scorching noonday sun, more than 1,400 paramilitary fighters and their leader laid down their arms on Friday in the largest demobilisation of outlaw troops in Colombia's recent history. One by one, men and women wearing camouflage uniforms of the Catatumbo Bloc of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, handed over their weapons to government officials in a rural area near the border with Venezuela. It was the fourth and largest demobilisation of paramilitary units in a series that aims to remove 3,000 fighters from Colombia's civil strife by year's end. Among the paramilitaries were some of the men and women who in 1999, under the command of the AUC's leader, Salvatore Mancuso, turned the coca-rich Catatumbo region into a bloody battlefield, killing or forcibly ``disappearing'' anyone they suspected of being leftwing or having sympathy for Colombia's rebels. Though Government officials and AUC leaders underlined the importance of the decommissioning as one more step towards ending the violence that has gripped Colombia for decades, uncertainty over the future of the troops charged with violent crimes cast a pall over the ceremony.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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