800 Colombian paramilitaries to
lay down arms in January
Some 800 paramilitaries will
hand over their arms by the
middle of this month, within the
framework of the peace process
between the Colombian government
and the rightist United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC), said congresswoman Rocio
Arias on Tuesday.
Arias, considered as one close
to the AUC and a principal
defenders of the peace with the
paramilitaries, revealed that
members of the North Bloc of the
AU will be demobilized by Jan.
14.
She added it is possible that
the paramilitary bloc operating
in the western district of Choco
could also lay down their
weapons.
This announcement was released
after the AUC negotiating
delegation warned there would be
no further demobilization until
the Colombian government
determines the legal framework
for the peace process and the
reinsertion of paramilitaries.
About 2,500 paramilitaries have
laid down their weapons so far.
During the past two months,
1,200 men of AUC's Catatumbo
Bloc in southwest Colombia and
600 of AUC's Calima and
Cundinamarca blocs in central
Colombia were demobilized.
The 20,000-strong AUC has its
origins in vigilante groups set
up by cattle ranchers and drug
traffickers to combat left-wing
guerrillas.
Colombia has been locked in a
four-decade civil war, the
longest in Latin America, in
which government forces, leftist
guerrillas and far-right
paramilitaries fight one
another. The conflicts kill more
than 3,000 people a year.
Former Paraguayan president
faces confiscation of assets
A prosecutor in Paraguay
demanded Tuesday the
confiscation of 800,000 US
dollars from former Paraguayan
President Luis Gonzalez Macchi,
local press reported.
Prosecutor Alba Delvalle said
the amount covers the undue
appropriation of resources by
the former president and he has
filed charges against Gonzalez
Macchi for the irregular
handling of a credit from Asia
for 1,500 Paraguayan peasant
families, according to the
report.
Several other officials involved
in the credit program were also
indicted.
The 55-year-old former
president, who had been in
office from 1999 to 2003, faces
other charges of corruption
during his administration,
including the embezzlement of 16
million dollars from two
bankrupt banks to a private
account in the United States.
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Chile's Supreme Court
upholds indictment against
Pinochet
Chile's Supreme Court on
Tuesday upheld an indictment
against former dictator
Augusto Pinochet for one
murder and nine kidnappings
in relation to the Operation
Condor case.
The decision of the Supreme
Court, with three votes in
favor and two against,
confirmed the indictment
filed by judge Juan Guzman
against the ex-dictator,
meaning Pinochet will stay
under house arrest, a court
official said.
Operation Condor was carried
out in the 1970s by the
military regimes in South
America to hunt down
dissidents in the region.
The Supreme Court took two
weeks to issue its decision
due to the lack of consensus
between its five judges.
Pinochet has never stood
trial for the disappearance
and presumed murder of about
3,000 political opponents,
who vanished during his rule
between 1973 and 1990.
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