COLOMBIAN MILITANTS GIVE UP WEAPONS

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Hundreds of paramilitary fighters handed in their
weapons and renounced violence Wednesday in a ceremony in southern
Colombia, the country's peace commissioner said.

Separately, the U.S. Embassy in Colombia said it would not penalize
companies for hiring former members of armed groups that Washington
considers terrorist organizations _ a declaration that may help the
fighters abandon warfare and crime.

The 552 combatants who disarmed were members of the Central Bolivar
Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, considered
by the United States as a terrorist organization with links to major
drug traffickers.

Not in the DMN-

The ceremony, attended by the peace commissioner, Luis Carlos
Restrepo, took place on a farm near the town of Valparaiso, 260 miles
south of Bogota. With the ceremony, more than 22,500 paramilitary
fighters have benefited under a government-brokered peace deal with
AUC.

Under the deal, each combatant will be granted amnesty from
prosecution for rebellion and assistance in their reintegration into
civil society.

The final few thousand AUC members still active are expected to disarm
in the coming weeks.

The U.S. Embassy said Tuesday that illegal fighters who disarmed under
a recent Colombian peace deal "were required to renounce their
membership in any and all terrorist organizations and have sworn not
to rejoin or support such organizations."

More than 3,000 Colombians are killed every year in a triangular
conflict among government troops, leftist rebels and right-wing
paramilitary fighters.