Colombian fighters lay down arms

The AUC's Banana Bloc has now completely disarmed

Some 450 members of Colombia's feared rightwing paramilitaries have disarmed en masse in a football field as part of the process to end the civil war.

Dressed in camouflage and wearing rubber boots, the United Self-Defence Forces (AUC) fighters sang the national anthem before surrendering weapons.

AUC negotiator Salvatore Mancuso said in a speech that the fighters were asking to be allowed back into society.

Mr Mancuso is himself resisting a United States extradition order.

The government has ruled that he may stay in Colombia because of his role in disarmament.

Only on Wednesday, the Colombian Supreme Court authorised the extradition of Mr Mancuso and two other outlawed figures to the US, one of them a top leftist rebel.

Interior and Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt de la Vega said on Thursday that although the rules covering extradition were still in force, the public order law meant that arrest warrants for leaders of armed groups seriously taking part in peace talks had been suspended.

Enemies 'forgiven'

The fighters from the AUC's Banana Bloc disarmed in Turbo, a town 500km (310 miles) north-west of the capital, Bogota.

Palmera is the most senior Farc rebel in captivity

For more than a decade, the bloc held sway over much of Colombia's main banana-growing region in Antioquia State.

Hundreds of rifles, grenade-launchers and mortars clattered onto a long table at the ceremony.

Hundreds of the AUC's 15,000 or so members disarmed earlier and at least 2,400 are due to join them by the end of this year. The organisation should be completely disbanded by 2006.

Mr Mancuso said the paramilitaries were ready to "forgive our enemies and ask society to receive us in its bosom and believe in our decision to liberate ourselves from the war".

The other two men wanted for extradition are Carlos Castano, an AUC leader widely believed dead, and leftist rebel leader Ricardo Palmera, better known by his alias Simon Trinidad.

Mr Palmera, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), is currently in custody.