ECUADOR WARY OF U.S. DRUG WATCH

MANTA, Ecuador--American airmen armed with M-16 assault rifles keep a close
watch on U.S. Navy spy planes parked on a runway at an airfield on the
outskirts of this Pacific port.

The Ecuadorean air base has become the new hub of U.S. surveillance flights
over the vast cocaine-producing areas of South America, and the U.S.
military guards have reason to be vigilant.

The drug-fueled violence that Ecuadoreans long feared would spill over the
Colombian border has arrived--intensifying a debate over the wisdom of
giving the United States a foothold close to the troubled frontier.

"We support the base being used to fight drug trafficking," Antonio Posso,
an influential congressman, said. "But the base apparently is being used
also to put together an operation to fight Colombia's guerrillas, which
involves us in a conflict that is not Ecuador's."

The United States is spending $62 million to expand and improve the Manta
facility. The number of U.S. servicemen assigned to Manta has risen to 125
and that figure will reach 400 after construction work is completed in October.

At that point, giant U.S. AWACS surveillance planes and tankers to fuel
them will replace the smaller Navy aircraft, allowing the United States to
monitor air and marine activity far into the Caribbean. That will allow
full resumption of U.S. anti-drug surveillance flights, which were cut by
two-thirds when U.S. forces evacuated Howard Air Force Base in Panama in 1999.

The United States maintains the Manta base will remain under Ecuadorean
control and is being used only as an observation post.

"The closing of Howard Air Force Base in Panama stopped the ability of the
U.S. government to easily look at the movement of drugs from Latin America
to the United States," U.S. Ambassador Gwen Clare said in Quito. "Manta,
which sits in the middle of the source zone, has improved dramatically our
ability to monitor movement of drugs in the region.

"Why would we put at risk this pearl that we have?" Clare said.

A recent attack in a coastal village on the Colombian border, Palma Real,
stunned Ecuadoreans.

Colombian drug traffickers abducted and killed a village official and six
of his relatives and friends, including his 14-year-old daughter. They
disfigured their victims' faces and slit open their abdomens.

The motive? The official had dared to confiscate 200 kilos of cocaine the
Colombians had tried to smuggle through Ecuador.

The violence was a nightmare for many Ecuadoreans, who fear U.S. use of the
Manta base may provoke bloody reprisals from powerful Colombian rebel
groups who protect the narcotics trade.