Colombian rebel group begins handing over arms to government

Colombian armed group Comuneros del Sur (Commoners of the South) handed over war materiel and signed two agreements with President Gustavo Petro, both sides said on Saturday.

"This is a historic moment," Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said at a ceremony in the city of Pasto in the southwestern Andean region.

He said that in the past two days, the group has handed over land mines, grenades and rockets to an army unit that is destroying them.

"We consider that the armed fight is obsolete, that there are new times and new needs. We refuse to return to war," said Royer Garzon, one of the leaders of the group.

The move paves the way for the eventual disarmament and reintegration into civilian life of some 300 Comuneros del Sur rebels.

Until last May, the Comuneros del Sur were part of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), which has about 6,000 fighters and is still fighting the Colombian government.

When the Comuneros del Sur broke away from the ELN and began peace talks with the Petro administration, it angered the ELN leadership and stalled its negotiations with the Colombian government.

Difficult peace process in Colombia

In 2016, Colombia signed a peace deal with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in which more than 13,000 fighters laid down their arms.

But the FARC's withdrawal from some rural areas has created a power vacuum that smaller groups have tried to fill.

Petro's government has held peace talks with nine different rebel groups and drug trafficking gangs in Colombia under a strategy known as "total peace."

Most of these negotiations have failed to reduce violence, and so far only the Comuneros del Sur have agreed to begin a transition to civilian life.

The Colombian government is now struggling to provide security in remote rural areas where different groups fight over drug trafficking routes and natural resources, while forcibly recruiting minors and taxing local businesses to raise funds.

Edited by: Zac Crellin