Liberia's main rebel group turned over weapons to UN peacekeepers at its northern stronghold of Tubmanburg today.
The government and rebels signed a peace deal last August but disarming the 40,000 fighters on both sides has been fitful after 14 years of civil war.
Some 11,000 pro-government fighters have handed in their weapons to the country's UN mission (UNMIL) but so far few rebels have done so.
"We are going to turn in this symbolic quantity of arms and ammunition over to UNMIL today and that will serve as a direct message to the fighters that we are not prepared to fight any more," Mr said Sekou Conneh, chairman of the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD).
"We will also use this occasion to tell the fighters to get ready for full disarmament," he added.
The United Nations recently launched an information campaign to make sure all fighters are aware of the programme's conditions.
Mr Conneh said LURD had 18,000 fighters and added that after disarmament his organisation, which last summer launched three attacks on Monrovia that left some 2,000 people dead, would be reformed as either a political party or advocacy group.
"We want peace and our people have suffered too long," he said.
Around 250 Irish troops are in Liberia as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in the war-torn country.