FARC Call on Colombian Leader to Save Ceasefire

Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas urged President Juan Manuel Santos Thursday to intervene to save their unilateral ceasefire, saying ongoing army attacks put it at risk.

"We want to ask President Santos to do something to save the unilateral, indefinite truce the FARC has declared to the country, to immediately stop these operations against guerrilla forces," said Ivan Marquez, the rebels' chief negotiator at ongoing peace talks with the government.

The FARC declared an indefinite, unilateral ceasefire on December 17 but has vowed to continue fighting back when attacked.

Santos has refused to reciprocate on the ceasefire until a full peace deal is reached, but announced last week that the army would halt air raids against the FARC for a month.

While both measures were welcomed as significant advances in efforts to end the 50-year-old guerrilla war, they have failed to prevent periodic skirmishes between the army and the FARC.

On March 9, the army said it had killed FARC commander Jose David Suarez in combat, accusing him of running drug- and weapon-trafficking operations for the rebels.

Last week the army said it had killed six suspected FARC fighters and captured 18.

And the FARC said Wednesday it had killed a soldier at the weekend after coming under attack.

"These attacks on guerrilla units are progressively eroding the FARC's determination to maintain a unilateral ceasefire indefinitely," said Marquez, the rebels' second-in-command.

"Please, don't force us to break that decision," he said in the Cuban capital Havana, where peace talks have been taking place for the past two years.

The Colombian conflict has killed 220,000 people and uprooted more than five million since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) launched their rebellion in 1964.