Colombian authorities arrest 536 former paramilitaries
Colombian police have arrested 536 former paramilitary fighters in recent months for crimes against humanity, but the crackdown has also put the peace process to test,local media reported on Friday.

Police chief Jorge Castro was quoted as saying that the arrestees include members of the right-wing rebel group, the Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). They were facing charges of homicide, malicious wounding, gangsterism, drug trafficking, extortion, theft, criminal damage and illegal possession of weapons.

The arrests came amid recent reports that AUC members were taking up arms again after the government in April declared the rebel group had been completely demobilized.

At least 41,000 AUC fighters have left the group and more than 31,000 of them handed in their weapons in the peace process launched by President Alvaro Uribe in December 2002, according to official figures.

But tensions remain over a court ruling in May that overturned key provisions of the Justice and Peace Law, under which militia members who turned in their arms would serve no more than eight years for such crimes as drug smuggling, massacre and torture.

The court also ruled that paramilitary fighters convicted of crimes prior to the peace process must serve full terms, which would mean that warlords who took part in massacres would serve their original sentences.

In June, former AUC leader Ivan Roberto Duque threatened to take up arms again, saying "many of the former combatants would prefer to die in the mountains rather than spend 30 to 40 years injail."

The peace process is also under fire from Colombia's political opposition leaders who argue that the demobilization effectively gives AUC fighters immunity to crimes.

Unveiling the recent anti-crime action, Castro said that policebegan taking measures to monitor former AUC members.

"The idea of reintegrating them to society has not been lost, but we are monitoring them to make sure they will not take the wrong path: to commit crime, or to end up returning to the hands of drug dealers," he said.

Colombia's various rebel groups have been fighting the government and each other since the 1960s. The AUC, which was formed in the 1980s, began its demobilization in late 2003.