Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 Author: Larry Rohter, New York Times U.S.-PANAMA ACCORD OVER DRUG CENTER SOURS Troops would remain after bases close PANAMA -- Late last year, the president of Panama announced that his government had ``reached an agreement'' with Washington on a drug interdiction center that would permit American troops to stay here after the United States gives up control of the Panama Canal and the last U.S. military bases on Dec. 31, 1999. Now, however, the accord has clearly unraveled. President Ernesto Pérez Balladares has denounced the document as ``an ill-conceived pile of paper,'' a referendum on it scheduled for July has been indefinitely postponed, and at a news conference this month, U.S. and Panamanian negotiators could not say whether they could produce a replacement. Neither government has made public the text of the accord to set up a Multinational Counter-Narcotics Center at what is today Howard Air Force Base, on the west bank of the Panama Canal. At a news briefing in Washington on April 16, State Department spokesman James Rubin said that ``for internal reasons the government of Panama has demanded extensive textual changes'' and that ``we have agreed to some restructuring and clarifications.'' A draft document published in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior drew intense criticism in Panama and revealed at least some of the objections forcing Pérez Balladares to reverse himself. The chief aggravation is a provision permitting the 2,000 or so U.S. soldiers expected to be stationed at the center to engage in ``other missions.'' To some within the governing party, and elsewhere in Latin America, that would give the United States a legal basis to intervene militarily in the region at its discretion. Language that allows, but does not require, countries taking part in the center -- the United States obviously most of all -- to share the intelligence they gather with other members has been criticized equally. ``The text had in it things that have nothing to do with the drug war but which are functions typical of a military base of a great power,'' complained Ricardo Arias Calderon, a former vice president. Diplomats said reservations about the accord were expressed by several neighbors, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. The United States, clearly impatient, suggests Panama may not be the only acceptable site, that Honduras or U.S. military bases in Florida are alternatives. Largely overlooked in the dispute is that the United States and six South American countries are already cooperating in a drug detection and interdiction program operated out of Howard Air Force Base. Since June, the program has monitored air and sea shipments of cocaine from South America. Still, said Brig. Gen. Howard DeWolf, director of that task force, Panama has advantages none of the other possibilities can match. ``Panama provides us a presence and a platform in the region, a steppingstone to forward deploy down range'' in South America, he said. ``We can be located in Miami, but that would not be the same as being truly engaged with our partners in the region.''