US PLANS MORE TROOPS FOR 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 $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 $7.5bn anti-drugs
initiative, to which the US has promised $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 $12m of funding from the US, as part of
Plan Colombia, for the police and army on the northern border with
Colombia. A further $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 $40m a year during the next five
years for development projects.