Some 550 far-right Colombian paramilitary fighters turned in their arms on Saturday, the fifth disbandment in less than a month under the Andean country's peace initiative. More than 3,000 paramilitary combatants have laid down their arms since the middle of last year when the government's paramilitary pacification program began. In Saturday's demobilization ceremony held in the western province of del Valle, Hernan Hernandez, commander of the paramilitary Calima Block, asked forgiveness "for all the errors we have committed." The paramilitaries have killed thousands of people in an illegal campaign against Colombia's Marxist rebels, who are fighting a 40-year war for socialist revolution. The Calima Block is part of the 20,000-strong United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC. In the biggest disarmament in Colombia's history, 1,400 AUC members turned in their weapons a week ago near the Venezuelan border.
