-Caveat Lector-
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Date sent: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 02:07:34 -0400 (EDT)
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Subject: [CIA-DRUGS] FT: US plans more troops for Ecuador drugs fight
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Subj: FT: US plans more troops for Ecuador drugs fight
Date: 6/6/01 8:27:50 AM Mountain Daylight Time
From: xx738<@>prairienet.org (Colombian Labor Monitor)
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[NOTE: Vietnamization in spades! Send more troops, send more
hardware! -DG]
===============================================
"From Howard Airforce base in Panama, we could
get down to Ecuador but not much further south.
Now (that) we're in the area the entire time we
can venture into Peru, Colombia and over the
Pacific Ocean."
_____________ ===============================================
FINANCIAL TIMES [London]
Wednesday, 6 June 2001
US plans more troops for Ecuador drugs fight
--------------------------------------------
By Nicholas Moss
QUITO, Ecuador -- The US plans to triple the number of troops operating
from a base in north-west Ecuador in its fight against the drugs trade in
south America.
At least 200 mostly air force and navy personnel will be temporarily
stationed at the Ecuadorean airforce base in Manta from October after the
US completes work to expand the runway. Up to 400 personnel may be
stationed there under a ten-year accord with the Ecuadorean government.
Until April, when construction work began, an average of 100 troops were
flying up to three missions a day in P3 propeller aircraft similar to the
spy aircraft at the centre of the recent US-China dispute.
Once ABB Susa, a US-based engineering and construction management company,
completes the Dollars 30m lengthening of the runway, the US will fly
larger, more sophisticated aircraft on reconnaissance missions.
Improvements to the airport, including the construction of a fire station,
will benefit the fishing town's economy, allowing direct international
tourist flights and bigger exports.
Manta is one of four "forward-operating locations" - along with Curacao,
Aruba and El Salvador - that form the US's network of anti-drugs bases in
the region.
The combined operating costs of the four are less than the cost of the
base the US closed in Panama when it handed back the canal at the end of
1999.
"From Howard Airforce base in Panama, we could get down to Ecuador but not
much further south. Now (that) we're in the area the entire time we can
venture into Peru, Colombia and over the Pacific Ocean," said a US embassy
official in Quito.
The prospect of more US troops in Ecuador has alarmed some local analysts
who said it represents a first step towards an armed US presence in the
Andean nation to support Colombia's Dollars 7.5bn anti-drugs initiative,
to which the US has promised Dollars 1.3bn in aid. The US refutes this
claim.
The Manta base would instead allow the US to observe the movements of
narco-traffickers and feed the information, via its Joint Interagency Task
Force headquarters in Key West, Florida, to relevant government and
military authorities in the region, said one official.
"This isn't Plan Colombia although the flights have a similar goal. Plan
Colombia is about trying to uproot drug trafficking and the planting and
processing of coca for cocaine (poppies, and marijuana) in Colombia. The
Manta base will help prevent the movement out of drugs via boat or small
plane," said the embassy official.
Ecuador has been approved for Dollars 12m of funding from the US, as part
of Plan Colombia, for the police and army on the northern border with
Colombia. A further Dollars 8m has been destined for development projects
although the country's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, has said that
Ecuador needs more money to counter the impact of spillover problems from
its neighbour and the possible settling of uprooted Colombian drug
traffickers in Ecuador.
Mr Moeller will travel to Washington next week with Udenor, the
government's northern border development agency, to lobby for more money.
The US has pledged Ecuador Dollars 40m a year during the next five years
for development projects.
Copyright 2001 The Financial Times Limited
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