LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Three Marxist rebel leaders jailed in Peru have
                  ended a month-long hunger strike after becoming seriously ill during a
                  protest to demand better prison conditions, a guerrilla spokesman said
                  Wednesday.

                  The rebels' decision to resume eating Tuesday ended the Tupac Amaru
                  Revolutionary Movement's (MRTA) most publicized action since a
                  1996-1997 hostage siege. They are being held at a navy base prison near
                  Lima.

                  MRTA leader Victor Polay and his deputies, Peter Cardenas and Miguel
                  Rincon, stopped the protest after the government suspended Red Cross
                  humanitarian visits, and relatives said the rebels had begun to suffer kidney
                  and heart complaints.

                  "They suspended their hunger strike because it got to the point that they
                  could have ended up in a cemetery," MRTA spokesman Isaac Velazco told
                  Reuters by telephone from Germany.

                  The rebels, who led a movement responsible for armed attacks and
                  kidnappings over the past decade, had continued their protest despite a
                  move by 50 comrades in an Andean jail two weeks ago to stop their own
                  hunger strike in support of their leaders.

                  Prison authorities in Lima confirmed the three rebels had ended the strike but
                  said they had no information on their health. Relatives, who were prevented
                  from seeing the prisoners during the protest, said doctors were now treating
                  them.

                  "They are being treated for dehydration so they can recover and the visits
                  can begin again," said Otilia Polay, sister of the MRTA leader.

                  The Cuban-inspired group's leaders were protesting conditions in cells often
                  referred to in Peru as "tombs," where they are kept in solitary confinement
                  and leave dungeon-like rooms for only about half an hour a day.

                  Hunger strikes are a well-known form of protest in Peru, and the MRTA
                  had conducted several similar protests since the group's formation in the
                  mid-1980s, political analysts said.

                  President Alberto Fujimori, whose tough stance in virtually defeating the
                  rebels has been a mainstay of his popularity during nine years in office, had
                  rejected their demands.

                  This month he ordered the construction of 16 more cells at the navy prison
                  for other rebel leaders.

                  Human rights groups have criticized Fujimori for alleged rights abuses and
                  have labeled Peru's prison conditions as "inhuman."

                  The MRTA rebels, serving life sentences alongside the leaders of Peru's
                  larger guerrilla group, Shining Path, live in cells with a concrete slab for a
                  bed, a hole in the floor for a toilet and a tiny space in the ceiling that is the
                  only source of light.

                  Velazco, who has kept in close contact with the MRTA for years from
                  Germany, has said the group's informants on the hunger strike were "people
                  with close links to Peru's military." With visits suspended, there is little
                  communication between prisoners and the outside world.

                  The MRTA grabbed world headlines in 1996 when 14 mainly teen-age
                  rebels took hundreds of hostages at the Japanese ambassador's home in
                  Lima on December 17, 1996. Peruvian commandos stormed the residence
                  four months later, killing all the guerrillas.

                  With the capture of key militants, the movement has more rebels inside
                  prison -- about 200 -- than campaigning outside.

                     Copyright 1999 Reuters.