quote:

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BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Nov. 25 - Some 450 paramilitaries in Colombia's banana-growing north, the cradle of death squads that evolved into the antiguerrilla militia in the 1990's, disarmed on Thursday.

It was among the first of several demobilizations intended to take 3,000 paramilitary fighters out of the chaotic conflict in Colombia.

Members of the so-called Banana Bloc of the militia, the United Self-Defense Forces, laid down their assault rifles, mortars and other weapons as the government's peace negotiator, Luis Carlos Restrepo, looked on at a soccer stadium in Turbo, near the Panamanian border.

"We hope, we ask God, that this contributes to peace in Colombia," President Álvaro Uribe told reporters in Cartagena.

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Surprise. I'm wondering if this might prompt FARC and the Colombian government to meet at the negotiating table and hammer out a cease-fire and (speaking somewhat idealistically) an amnesty on both sides for anyone not actually involved in the killing of anyone else.

This would, I hope, ease the fears of those who never fired a weapon in a conflict but were what might be termed "support personnel", i.e. farmers and ranchers in FARC or paramilitary-controlled areas that supplied food to the reigning forces.