COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARY GROUPS VOW TO REFORM

Colombia's Right-Wing Paramilitaries Are To Give Up Drug Trafficking And
Massacring Opponents, They Claimed Yesterday.

Carlos Castano, the warlord who founded the United Self Defence Forces of
Colombia (AUC), dissolved the group a month ago after widespread abuses by
its members.

Since then paramilitary organisations have operated independently, but have
taken a battering from Marxist guerrillas and the state.

Leaders of 18 paramilitary groups met last week at a ranch in Uraba in north
Colombia and voted to reform and re-invent themselves.

"We have decided to abolish the practice of drug trafficking which served as
a source of finance for our organisation - and we have made a commitment to
comply with and respect human rights," said a letter signed by the leaders
of the group.

The announcement was met with scepticism. Castano's brother Fidel, who
founded the paramilitary force that evolved into the AUC, was a member of
the Medellin drug cartel until he fell out with its leader, Pablo Escobar.

Sources from the American Drug Enforcement Administration said that the
paramilitaries were deeply involved in the drugs trade.

The AUC was also responsible for more than two thirds of the human rights
abuses committed last year, according to rights groups. Massacring suspected
guerrilla sympathisers was the main tactic in their anti-subversive war.