Colombia warlords visit Congress

Peace talks have been taking place in a "safe zone" in the north

Three senior members of a right-wing paramilitary group have been given safe conduct by the Colombian government to address Congress in Bogota.

The AUC (United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia) leaders will be immune from arrest during Wednesday's visit, said President Alvaro Uribe's government.

The paramilitary group formally began peace talks with the government, in northern Colombia, earlier this month.

The 20,000-strong AUC is accused of mass killings and drug trafficking.

One of the leaders, AUC military commander Salvatore Mancuso, is wanted by the US for cocaine trafficking.

He, along with Ramon Isaza and Ivan Roberto Duque, will become the first serving AUC members to address the Colombian Congress.

The Associated Press quoted Rocio Arias, a conservative congresswoman, as saying it was an important step towards peace in Colombia.

'Drugs cartel'

But critics say the government should not give Mr Mancuso such a high-profile political stage.

"The peace process should only take place at the negotiating table, where the paramilitaries surrender themselves to justice in return for certain benefits," said Carlos Gaviria, a leading opposition senator, told AP.

The BBC's Colombia correspondent, Jeremy McDermott, says the AUC is the country's most brutal warring faction, having carried out massacres and assassinations to "cleanse" large tracts of the country of Marxist rebels.

It has long been on European and US lists of terrorist organisations.

The AUC likes to portray itself as a group of people who were forced to take up arms to defend themselves against guerrilla kidnapping and extortion in the place of a powerless state, says our correspondent.

Others, including the US, see it as little more than a drugs cartel moving some 40% of the 800 tons of cocaine that leave Colombia every year.

Ten AUC negotiators have been discussing peace with the government in a government-granted safe haven in the northern province of Cordoba.