'Triumph' as FARC Leader Lifts Hunger Strike Demanding Prisoner Release

A leader in the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia – People's Army (FARC-EP), Jesus Santrich, ended the hunger strike that has continued for 25 days pressuring the Colombian government to hold up its end of the deal by releasing prisoners as the ongoing peace agreements are implemented.

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“Today we lift the hunger strike as a triumph of the persistence of our comrades,” the FARC leader said on his twitter account on Thursday.

“After 25 days of protest,” we have achieved “a reaction from the state that allows the lifting of obstacles to the liberation of the arrested guerrillas,” Santrich said in Bogota during a press conference.

Santrich, who served as a negotiator in the dialogues for the peace agreement since 2012, said that he lifted the strike because the government released a statement saying they would expedite the process to release the prisoners as much as possible.

The strike had begun to take a serious toll on his health, as he was hospitalized last Friday for complications resulting from the strike.

Last week the Colombian government, under the leadership of President Juan Manuel Santos, said that there were still approximately 1,700 guerrillas in prison, who were awaiting amnesty from judges as was agreed to during peace negotiations in Cuba.

During the period of the strike, the United Nations mission in Colombia also issued an appeal to the government urging them to expedite the release of the prisoners, saying that failure to comply with all parts of the amnesty agreement could threaten the peace process.

The peace accords reached a major milestone when the FARC-EP handed in all of their weapons to the United Nations last month, marking the transformation from an armed to a civilian electoral entity after over five decades of armed conflict.

In addition to the Colombian government's continued detention of prisoners from the conflict, the continued existence of right-wing paramilitaries has also threatened to jeopardize the peace process as they surge their presence in many areas formerly controlled by the leftist guerrillas.

A recent poll has shown that 75 percent of the former guerrillas are currently homeless.