Nearly 500 paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) handed over their arms to the Colombian government on Wednesday afternoon at a temporary demobilization zone in the northwest of the country.

The demobilized people will be included in education and health programs and receive other benefits, Sergio Caramagna, representative of the Organization of American States (OAS) to oversee the peace process said at a ceremony in Valencia, a city in Cordoba department.

The move constitutes a firm step toward the total dismantling of the AUC, Caramagna added.

Since December 2002, when peace negotiations started between the government and the AUC, 4,820 paramilitaries have laid down their arms and it is expected that all of the rebel group will be disarmed before 2006.

The AUC was established in the 1980s by drug traffickers and land owners to fight leftist guerrillas in areas where government troops had little control. It has been active in northern Colombia, particularly in the areas of Antioquia and Cordoba.

The AUC demobilization process will help ease Colombia's civil war, the longest in Latin America, which kills about 3,500 people a year on average.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2005)