-Caveat Lector-
Copyright 1999 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 22-Dec-99 ***
Title: OUTLOOK 2000-LATIN AMERIA: US Holds On to Areas of Influence
By David Carrasco
PANAMA CITY, Dec 22 (IPS) - US control of the Panama Canal Zone
has officially ended but Washington maintains a tight grip on the
Guantanamo naval base in Cuba and is searching for other sites
from which it could launch anti-drug operations in Latin America
and the Caribbean.
The closure this month of the US military complex on the banks
of the Panama Canal complied with the so-called Torrijos-Carter
Canal Treaties, named after former Panamanian and US presidents,
which were ratified in Washington on Sept. 7, 1977.
The dismantling of the bases and the evacuation of troops,
however, has revived the demands of ultra-conservative factions in
the US Congress who want the US government to maintain strategic
interests in Panama.
Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso admitted that her
administration was discussing the issues of security and
information exchange with Washington but denied that implied a
deal would be signed for new bases extending the US military
presence here in the former canal enclave.
Previously, Panama was on the US list of countries that were
not sufficiently cooperating in the war on drugs and Washington
offered its support to create a joint force to address that issue.
The head of the White House's national drug control policy,
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, has stated more effective measures are
needed to combat narco-trafficking, particularly in the Caribbean
where drugs estimated to be worth 57 billion dollars a year pass
through to North America.
During a tour of South America in July, McCaffrey warned that the
US withdrawal from Panama would undermine the war on drug
smuggling, and stressed that the United States wanted to
reestablish control with bases in Aruba, Curacao, Ecuador and
Honduras.
The Ecuadorean government has proposed that the United States
use the port of Manta, on the Pacific Ocean, to combat drugs, but
opposition politicians in that country suspect that Washington
really needs a base there so it can intervene in Colombia.
Washington already has a small observation post in Manta for
regional anti-drug operations.
Should a 10-year bilateral accord be signed, as the Jamil
Mahuad administration is hoping, a 200-strong US force would be
established in Ecuador- including narcotics agents, and coast
guard and military units.
Mahuad's support is based on the proximity of the bases to the
insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the
coca growers in the Colombian department of Putamayo on the border
with Ecuador, according to the country's defence minister, retired
Gen. Jose Gallardo.
Indigenous groups, the Catholic Church and human rights and
environmental organisations have questioned the deal.The base in
Manta would be ''a major insult to our freedom, our autonomy, and
above all, our sovereignty,'' said the bishop of the city of
Cuenca, Luis Alberto Luna Tobar.
Fernando Manfredo, the first Panamanian to hold the post of sub-
administrator of the interoceanic canal, told IPS that the United
States constantly resorted to pretexts to maintain its military
presence in the area, among them the failure in 1997 to install a
Multilateral Anti-Drug Centre in Panama.
The Centre would have used Howard Air Base and the Rodman Naval
Base in the Panamanian Pacific to coordinate continent-wide
intelligence gathering and offensives against narco-trafficking
and narco-terrorism.
The initiative collapsed when the government of then-president
Ernesto Perez Balladares decided to walk away from the talks,
after objections by other Latin American countries.
Manfredo said that since the dismantling of the Panamanian
Southern Command, the United states had focused greater attention
on its bases in Miami, Puerto Rico and Guantanamo, in the extreme
east of Cuba, which form the so-called ''umbrella of defence'' of
the interoceanic waterway.
The existence of Guantanamo, located within the territory of
Washington's biggest enemy in the Americas, has been the source of
frequent conflicts with Cuba, since Dec. 1903 when the battleship
Kearsage fired a 21-gun salute to announce the US presence in that
part of island.
US troops currently billeted in Miami, Puerto Rico and
Guantanamo are armed with cutting-edge anti-missile technology to
repel inter-continental attacks on the Panama Canal, one of the
greatest engineering marvels of the 20th century, whose
construction involved 75,000 laborers and lasted from 1904-1914.
But Manfredo stressed that never in the history of the Canal,
during World Wars or the long conflict in Vietnam, had the
waterway been subjected to any attack.
Sociologist Raul Leis, president of the Panamanian Centre of
Studies and Social Action (Ceaspa), told IPS that the defense of
the canal ''does not justify a return of the bases.''
Leis stressed that the banks of the Canal, including the 34,000
hectares that form part of the defense sites and firing ranges,
were suitable for economic and social development, and could be
operated, maintained and defended by Panama.
In that respect, Manfredo refuted the claims of conservative
groups that a single person armed with grenades, or the insurgents
across the border in Colombia, could destroy or incapacitate the
interoceanic waterway.
''That argument is absurd, lacking in veracity and ignores the
fact that there is an efficient security plan that covers the
canal 24 hours a day,'' he said.
The Canal has earthen dams nearly two kms long on the bottom
and its floodgates have two sets of reinforced locks that weigh
from 400 to 700 tonnes each, making it practically invulnerable to
conventional attacks.
According to Manfredo, the only potential threats to the Canal
area were the collapse of earth on its banks, the growth of 17
species of weeds in Lake Gatun, which could damage the propellers
of passing ships, and possible work stoppages by pilots or
navigators.
One of the best legal instruments for safe passage remained the
Neutrality Treaty which obliged the United States and Panama to
defend the Canal.
Miguel Montiel, director of the Canal Institute of the
University of Panama, told IPS that the ''Neutrality Treaty did
not authorise military or political intervention by the United
States,'' despite the various unilateral amendments introduced by
the US Congress.
For Deputy Miguel Bush, of the opposition Revolutionary
Democratic Party (PRD), the main challenge for Panama would be to
repudiate the maritime security and information exchange accord
that is being negotiated with the United States.
''The Canal does not need bases that endanger the neutrality of
the maritime waterway,'' Bush said. He accused the US military of
leaving Panama with 3,200 hectares contaminated with explosives
and un-detonated munitions - at the same time as talking about the
danger of drug smugglers and guerrillas in neighbouring Colombia.
The deputy noted that official ceremonies connected with the
hand over of the Canal bases avoided any reference to Omar
Torrijos, who led the nationalist struggle to dismantle the
colonial enclave in the old Canal Zone.
In spite of this, Bush said that the long struggle for
sovereignty would continue with the rejection of foreign bases,
which represented a ''new hostile power'' in Latin America.
(END/IPS/dc/ag/ip/ks/mk/99)
Origin: ROMAWAS/OUTLOOK 2000-LATIN AMERIA/
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