SALVADORANS BALK AT U.S. PLAN TO USE AIRPORT

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR -- The United States has touched a nerve in El
Salvador by seeking to set up a military logistics point for its war on
drugs in a country where U.S. advisers, intelligence and money not long ago
helped fuel a civil war.

The Salvadoran government agreed in March to allow U.S. reconnaissance
planes to use a military portion of the nation's international airport at
Comalapa for refueling and maintenance as part of a regional network to
monitor the routes used to smuggle drugs from South America to the United
States.

But the agreement has become caught up in a larger debate over the role of
the military there -- both El Salvador's own and that of the United States
- -- in fighting organized crime and drug trafficking in a country where
murder, kidnapping and drug-related crime have become hallmarks of life
since the peace accords ended the civil war eight years ago.

The crime wave has increased pressures for the Salvadoran military, which
for years before and during the civil war was used as a political repression
force, to play a role in shoring up domestic security, something the
country's new constitution forbids. At the same time, the encroaching role
of the United States is seen by some as infringing on national sovereignty.

Approval of the accord has been held up in the National Assembly by members
of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, the political
party of the former guerrillas who were sworn enemies of many U.S.
policymakers during the 1980s, when El Salvador's civil war became part of
the larger hostilities of the Cold War.

Supporters of the accord say the U.S. presence now would help deter the drug
trade that has increasingly relied on routes along El Salvador's Pacific
coast and helped fuel an explosion in crack cocaine use and related crime.

Legislators from the FMLN, who form the largest single bloc in the Assembly,
say the accord turns over to the United States monitoring and enforcement
tasks that rightly belong to El Salvador's own police and military. In
addition, the 10-year renewable agreement, they say, is too broad and does
not guarantee that the U.S. role will not grow.

"To have a United States base here would be a provocation because our
democracy is not yet mature," said Blanca Flor Bonilla, an FMLN legislator
and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. "The democracy we started with
the peace accords is weak. There are fears in military terms."

A Linchpin

U.S. officials say they do not consider the facility a base, since it would
not have barracks, commissaries or other features of a permanent military
installation. But they acknowledge that it would be a linchpin of the U.S.
government's anti-narcotics strategy after the closing last year of Howard
Air Force Base in Panama, which handled in its day some 2,000
counternarcotics flights per year.

Existing facilities in Ecuador, Aruba and Curacao have been used to fill the
gap left by Howard's closing and have about 15 ground support personnel
stationed at each, with crews and aircraft rotating through in short-term
stays.

U.S. officials have favored the facilities because they cost less to operate
than a full base: about $18 million a year versus $75.8 million a year at
Howard. And spreading the facilities over the Caribbean and Central and
South America, they say, has allowed for greater coverage than when the
planes flew from the single base in Panama.

The new facilities, which in military parlance are known as forward
operating locations, or FOLs, reflect a deeper change in U.S. relations with
countries in the region.

"When we had Panama, it was a crutch for us," said an administration
official. "We could do whatever we wanted and not worry about working with
other countries. This FOL prepares us for the reality in the region that
there are problems we can no longer handle by ourselves."

But seeking that aid has proved tricky in Central America, where the United
States was deeply involved in trying to turn back leftist insurgencies in El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala through the 1980s.

Discussions with the Costa Rican government over locating a facility there
failed earlier this year. Salvadoran officials offered to place a facility
there, saying they wanted to contribute to regional security. But they also
believed that it would help them combat their own problems of drug abuse and
crime.

El Salvador has seen an explosion in crack consumption over the last 15
years as traffickers started paying their Salvadoran accomplices in cocaine,
rather than cash. Salvadoran authorities say seizures of cocaine have
increased, including the discovery of nearly 800 pounds aboard a private
plane in June.

Opponents of the accord worry that it fails to specify the number of U.S.
troops allowed. They also bristle at general references that allow U.S.
personnel access to any government institutions needed to carry out their
mission.

Rodrigo Avila, the nation's former chief of police who is now a legislator,
countered that the accord presented no such threat. "This is a support
operation and not about war or anybody coming here with tanks," said Avila,
a member of the Nationalist Republican Alliance party, or Arena.

"I am not in agreement that U.S. troops should come in here and do what they
want, but that is not in the spirit of the accord."

U.S. officials acknowledge that the agreement is broad, but they say that it
needs to be flexible in case troops have to move elsewhere quickly or need
equipment or supplies not readily available there.

The FMLN has indicated that it may support the agreement if changes are made
and, if not, insists that it can block it. But even that is uncertain since
legislators have yet to determine if the accord is a routine matter that
requires a simple majority to pass or a treaty, which would need a
three-quarters majority of the Congress. The FMLN has enough votes to deny a
three-quarters vote, but it could not stop a simple majority.