BOGOTA, Aug. 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The Organization of American States(OAS) will reinforce its mission to supervise the demobilization of paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said Tuesday.

    At a meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Insulza, who arrived in the country on Monday, said it is necessary to "reinforce" the mission, currently involving some 20 delegates from the organization.

    The OAS delegates are in Colombia to assess the number of demobilized paramilitaries and weapons handed over to authorities in a disarmament ceremony.

    For the past two years, about 9,000 paramilitaries have been demobilized as part of the peace process that the government and the far-right AUC embarked on in December 2002.

    Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon said the demobilization will conclude on Dec. 31 and the OAS is expected to follow up the process of reconstruction and reconciliation in areas where the AUC once was active.

    The government has planned to set up a commission to push forward the process, he added.

    "When the demobilization is over on Dec. 31, it will be possible to reconstruct these zones for people in general to have a guarantee that this phenomenon (civil war) will disappear from Colombia," Calderon said.

    The AUC was established in the 1980s by drug traffickers and land owners to fight leftist guerrillas in areas where government troops had little control.

    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 every year. Enditem