U.S. Military Looks to Colombia to Replace Base in Ecuador

[Joanne98]

An article by the Colombian weekly magazine Cambio suggests the U.S. military base in Manta, Ecuador, will be moved to a new location in Colombia after the U.S. military’s contract with Ecuador expires in 2009. The likely new host for the U.S. base is Colombia’s Palanquero air force base in Puerto Salgar, 120 miles north of Bogotá.

Cambio cites an April 22 meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield and Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in which the U.S. diplomat delivered some unexpected news. Brownfield told the minister the State Department had decided the Palanquero base was being “recertified.” Cambio mentions “military and diplomatic circles” interpreted the decision as the first step toward establishing the new U.S. base in Palanquero.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1349/1/

[Purveyor]

1. Now the real story: Ecuador Refuses to Renew Lease on U.S. Military Base, NYT Says

By James Kraus

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuador declined to renew the U.S. lease on a military base that serves as a critical platform in the fight against narcotics smuggling, the New York Times reported.

The base, at Manta on the Pacific coast, has about 180 military personnel who carry out about 100 flights a month searching for boats carrying drugs from Colombia to the U.S., the newspaper reported.

Colombia supplies about 90 percent of the cocaine brought into the U.S., and flights last year resulted in about 200 cocaine seizures, the Times reported.

The U.S. signed a 10-year lease on the base in 1999 that doesn't require rent for the installation and wasn't submitted to Ecuador's Congress for approval, the Times said. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said the base undermines Ecuador's sovereignty, while others fear that it may draw the country deeper into Colombia's civil war, the newspaper said.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a2DU_h_iV9mo&refer=latin_america