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PASTO, Colombia (AP) \u2014 A rebel group called the Commoners of the South has begun handing its weapons over to Colombia\u2019s government<\/a>, the Defense Ministry said Saturday, as part of peace talks expected to lead to the group\u2019s disarmament in the coming months.<\/p>\n The group of about 250 fighters operates in Colombia\u2019s Southwestern Nari\u00f1o province and has been in negotiations with the government since last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a historic moment,\u201d Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a ceremony in the town of Pasto, where several accords with the group were outlined by officials.<\/p>\n Sanchez said that over the past two days, the Commoners of the South have handed over land mines, grenades and rockets to an army unit that is destroying them.<\/p>\n \u201cFarmers will be able to walk without the fear of coming across a minefield,\u201d Sanchez said.<\/p>\n Until recently, the Commoners of the South was part of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, a group of about 6,000 fighters that is still fighting Colombia\u2019s government.<\/p>\n In May last year, the Commoners broke away from the ELN and began peace talks with the administration of President Gustavo Petro<\/a>. That angered the ELN\u2019s leadership and stymied its negotiations with Colombia\u2019s government.<\/p>\n Petro, who was part of a rebel group in his youth, has been staging peace talks with nine separate rebel groups and drug trafficking gangs in Colombia under a strategy known as \u201ctotal peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of these negotiations have failed to reduce violence and so far only the Commoners of the South have agreed to begin a transition toward civilian life.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Commoners of the South are only one of nine problems\u201d faced by the Petro administration, said Gerson Arias, an analyst at the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a think tank in Bogota.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they are only a small and marginal segment of Colombia\u2019s armed groups,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Arias said the government has been trying to reach regional agreements with smaller factions of rebel groups that can take some pressure off the population, instead of larger, national accords.<\/p>\n \u201cThe talks with the Commoners of the South, are the only ones that may end up succeeding\u201d in the Petro administration, Arias said. But he added that some issues still need to be resolved, such as the legal mechanisms through which victims of the group will be able to seek justice and truth.<\/p>\n In 2016, Colombia signed a peace deal with the nation\u2019s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC<\/a>, in which more than 13,000 fighters laid down their weapons.<\/p>\n But the FARC\u2019s withdrawal from some rural areas created a power vacuum that smaller groups have tried to fill.<\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s government is now struggling to provide security in remote rural areas, where various groups are fighting over drug trafficking routes and natural resources, while they forcibly recruit minors and tax local businesses to raise funds.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, more than 50,000 people<\/a> were displaced from their homes in Catatumbo, a region along Colombia\u2019s border with Venezuela, after the ELN attacked villages where it accused farmers of supporting a rival group.<\/p>\n