Even as Colombian officials on Friday celebrated the disarmament of 1,400 right-wing paramilitary fighters in the Catatumbo region of northeast Colombia, rights groups and some lawmakers warned that the effort to demobilize the groups was moving too fast, with no verification of the results and no assurance it could bring lasting peace. Officials hailed the effort in Catatumbo, which culminated in ceremonies in the region on Friday, as a major step toward ending the country’s conflict and meeting the government’s goal of disarming Colombia’s 15,000 paramilitary fighters within a year. But a respected local rights group in the Norte de Santander Province, which includes Catatumbo, says fighters with paramilitary death squads killed more than 300 people in the province in the year leading up to the demobilization, despite a cease-fire the fighters had promised two years ago after informal talks began. The rights group, the Progress Foundation, said that spate of violence has mocked the disarmament effort and raised the specter of future violence.Full Story
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