550 Paramilitary Fighters Disarm in Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia — About 550 right-wing Colombian paramilitary fighters turned in their weapons Saturday, bringing to more than 3,000 the number of such fighters who have laid down their arms since the government’s pacification program began.

In Saturday’s demobilization ceremony in the western province of Valle del Cauca, Hernan Hernandez, commander of the Calima Front, asked forgiveness “for all the errors we have committed.” The Calima bloc is part of the 20,000-strong United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

Paramilitary groups have killed thousands in their campaign against the nation’s Marxist rebels, who have been fighting for four decades for a socialist revolution. Although the paramilitary groups are outlawed, they have been accused of working closely with Colombia’s military.

Meanwhile Saturday, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said a captured Marxist rebel leader would be extradited to the United States on cocaine-trafficking charges if his guerrilla group did not free dozens of hostages, including three Americans and a German, by year’s end.

Ricardo Palmera, a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, would become the first member of the rebel group to be sent to face justice in the U.S.