FARC Political Prisoners Go on Hunger Strike
At least 180 imprisoned members of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group are on hunger strike, protesting a lack of adequate medical care.
An ongoing hunger strike called by imprisoned members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) highlights not only the desperate conditions in Colombia’s prisons, but also the need to clarify how political prisoners will be dealt with as part of any peace deal between the guerrillas and the government.
At least 180 FARC guerrillas incarcerated in Bogota’s La Picota prison joined the strike that began at 6 a.m. November 24. The striking prisoners say they are protesting the failure of prison authorities to provide them with adequate medical care. Among the 22 medical cases that sparked the strike, nine are said to be serious, in what the guerrillas say is a form of “torture” carried out against them by authorities.
“Mutilated and tortured bodies placed in cold and hostile cells is the cruel reality that disabled prisoners of war are undergoing, and in that way consumed by forgetfulness and the neglect of the state, providing them nothing but a slow and painful death,” read a statement issued by the prisoners and published by the nongovernmental organization, Justice Solidarity Network (Corporacion Solidaridad Juridica).
In one case highlighted by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo – that of guerrilla Edison Martinez Leon – a gunshot wound to the leg sustained in the lead up to his September capture has been neglected to the point that he is now very close to losing his leg.
Though reports emerged in October that Colombia’s prison population had fallen over 9 percent since the previous year – from 120,596 prisoners in 2013 to 116,607 this year – the country’s jails remain chronically overcrowded, with some registering populations of more than 200 percent their official capacity.
The La Picota prison has an overpopulation of 22 percent, with 7,064 prisoners held in facilities intended for 5,810.
Amid the resulting squalor, Colombia’s approximately 11,000 left-wing political prisoners – encompassing not only members of guerrilla organizations, but also union leaders and social activists – have reported that they are subjected to especially brutal treatment and conditions.
“There is always verbal and physical abuse, and humiliation of political prisoners. In the prisons there is discrimination against political prisoners, from the very beginning, from the moment you arrive, you are always isolated,” Jaime Enrique Murillo, a former imprisoned member of the National Liberation Army (ELN), told teleSUR in October.
The persecution of Colombia’s political prisoners is of particular importance in the context of the currently postponed peace talks between the government and the FARC. With those talks expected to resume following the impending release of General Ruben Dario Alzate by the FARC, the need to address the situation of imprisoned guerrillas will once again emerge.
The inclusion of a currently imprisoned member of the FARC in the fourth victims’ group to take part in the peace talks – who spoke to the negotiators in Havana via telephone – suggested that the delegations are taking the issue of political prisoners into consideration.
However, as the current hunger strike highlights, the apparent mistreatment of imprisoned guerrillas is a situation that cannot be left untouched until an agreement is signed – likely at some point in 2015
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