Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jan 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Author: Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Foreign Service

U.S. FLIGHTS SOW DISCORD IN ECUADOR

MANTA, Ecuador -- At a military base 20 minutes by air from Colombia's 
hottest war zone, construction workers are lengthening a runway and 
excavating ground for cavernous hangars to house some important new 
arrivals -- U.S. E-3 AWACS surveillance planes.

Smaller U.S. spy planes are already flying missions from the Ecuadoran air 
force base. They are kept in the air by about 150 Americans -- U.S. Air 
Force crews, mechanics and security guards, among others. The AWACS jets 
will begin operations this summer, and the number of American personnel 
here will rise to about 400 over the next six months.

With that, Manta will become the main hub for U.S. surveillance flights 
over the vast cocaine-producing areas of Latin America. U.S. officials say 
it will play a vital role in choking off the drug trade by allowing full 
resumption of surveillance flights, which were cut by two-thirds when U.S. 
forces vacated Howard Air Force Base in Panama 18 months ago.

But in a country where violence from Colombia's drug-fueled guerrilla war 
is spilling over the border at an alarming rate, the project has touched 
off a bitter debate about the wisdom of opening the door to Uncle Sam. Last 
year, a Colombian guerrilla leader pronounced the Manta project a 
"declaration of war."

"We are compromising our neutrality in the Colombian conflict with the 
Manta base, dragging ourselves into a war between the Americans and their 
enemies in Colombia," said Congressman Henry Llanes, who is leading a fight 
to block the Manta project.

On Friday, Ecuadorans got unsettling news that their troops had killed six 
men at an illegal drug-making lab near the Colombian border. By some 
accounts, the casualties were members of the main leftist guerrilla group 
associated with the Colombian drug trade, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC. If so, it would be the first clash between that group 
and the Ecuadoran army.

Llanes and others consider the expansion at Manta to be part of Plan 
Colombia, the U.S.-backed effort by the Colombian government to turn up the 
heat on drug lords and the guerrillas who protect them. Washington is 
putting about $1.3 billion into the program. Using radar, cameras and 
communications-intercept equipment, U.S. spy planes can pinpoint low-flying 
drug-smuggling aircraft, clandestine labs, cultivation fields and transit 
routes. Information is passed instantly to police and soldiers in the 
countries below for interdiction; it also goes to authorities in the United 
States, so they can intercept incoming planes or boats.

The critics also note that the United States will pay no rent at Manta and 
signed the deal to build the AWACS facility with a former president, Jamil 
Mahuad, who is now in exile in the United States and under indictment here 
on a charge of abuse of power. Mahuad was overthrown in a military coup 12 
months ago.

Opponents of the U.S. operation view it as the latest aspect of a pattern 
of expanding American influence here. Ecuador last year adopted the U.S. 
dollar as the national currency, which many people see as giving Washington 
influence over the economy. U.S. diplomats also have pressured the country 
on political issues.

All of this leads to talk here that Ecuador is turning into America's "new 
Panama" -- a reference to the influence Washington held over that country, 
which also used the dollar and was viewed by many Latin Americans as a de 
facto 51st state. Ecuador is becoming "a sold-out country," said Llanes. "I 
fear we will pay with more than our pride."

U.S. officials are well aware of these feelings and go out of their way to 
soothe local sensibilities. The 150 servicemen at Manta wear civilian 
clothes when they ride vans and four-wheel-drive vehicles between the base 
and the luxury hotel and high-rise apartments where they live. Some take 
part in local volunteer work. U.S. officials argue, moreover, that the 
mission in Ecuador is not directly linked to Plan Colombia, and they have 
promised the operation will be limited to surveillance and that no armed 
aircraft will be brought here.

The Americans stress respect for local sovereignty. Said U.S. ambassador 
Gwen Clare: "The U.S. military personnel . . . are there as guests of the 
government of Ecuador. The [Manta air base] is and will continue to be an 
Ecuadorean facility under the control of Ecuadorean authorities."

What is being built is known in U.S. military jargon as a Forward Operating 
Location, or FOL -- U.S. officials avoid calling it a base. The idea is 
that it will create a new geographic net for tracking international drug 
traffickers by being linked to three smaller FOLs in El Salvador and the 
Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curacao.

U.S. authorities say that by mid-2002, the annual number of missions out of 
the four sites will top the 2,000 flights once annually flown out of 
Panama. Ecuador in particular is located within easy range of both Peru and 
Bolivia, key countries for growing the leaf used to make cocaine. It also 
borders ground zero, Colombia, where cocaine production over the past year 
was projected to increase -- at least in part because of fewer surveillance 
flights, analysts say.

Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug control policy director who left 
his post this month, said in a recent interview that "from a geo-strategic 
standpoint, we're going to be better off than we ever were in Panama. These 
new operations offer us the opportunity for far greater coverage than we've 
ever had in the region."

U.S. officials say the new arrangement will be very cost-effective. The 
total cost of infrastructure improvements at all four locations will be 
$116 million, with yearly maintenance estimated at $14 million, they say. 
No rent will be paid at any of them. That is far less than a full U.S. base 
in the region would cost, said Steve Lucas, spokesman for the U.S. Southern 
Command in Miami. "Compare that to the $78.5 million we paid for operations 
during just the last year in Panama," Lucas said, "and you get an idea of 
how much more efficient, as well as effective, these new FOLs will be."

The Clinton administration and U.S. military officials came under fire from 
congressional Republicans and other domestic critics because the FOLs were 
only partially -- in some cases, minimally -- functional before operations 
ended at the Panama base. But in Ecuador, where the Manta facility is still 
only 10 percent complete 14 months after the agreement was signed, 
political and legal resistance to the U.S. presence has played a role in 
the delays.

Part of the trouble stemmed from the ouster of Mahuad by a military coup 
aided by left-wing indigenous groups last January. Intense pressure from 
the State Department forced the military to back down, allowing civilian 
Gustavo Noboa, then Mahuad's vice president, to assume the presidency.

While demanding that the United States boost its $70 million in annual 
financial assistance dramatically -- in large part to offset what it sees 
as dangers caused by Plan Colombia -- the Noboa administration is 
nevertheless supporting the Manta operation.

"The message we are sending to [drug traffickers] is that we don't want you 
here," Foreign Minister Heinz Moeller said in a recent interview. "We are 
going to stick with whatever friends we find, and in this case, it is the 
government and the people of the United States. Yes, they are our friends, 
our staunch allies in the fight against this criminal corruption of drug 
producers."

Also enthusiastic are local politicians and merchants. Jorge Zambrano, the 
mayor of Manta, a port city of 220,000 about 150 miles west of Quito, the 
capital, said the improved runway will help with air exports of tuna and 
shrimp, the main industries here. The base also functions as the city's 
civilian airport.

Some residents think the Americans will spark an economic boom; already 
restaurants that cater to them have raised prices by up to 40 percent. 
There is talk of building new hotels, and city officials are conferring 
with Continental Airlines about starting direct flights to the United States.

"The people in Ecuador opposed to the U.S. in Manta are either jealous 
because their city did not get the facility, or they are trapped in an 
ideological box of the past," Zambrano said. "We have nothing to fear from 
the Americans anymore. By letting them in, we are doing our part in the 
drug war."
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