PROBLEMS PLAGUE NEW US ANTI-DRUG BASES

ORANJESTAD, Aruba -- This casino-clogged vacation spot off the Venezuelan
coast is nicknamed "the Happy Island."

But when asked about this Dutch protectorate's new role in the war on
drugs, a U.S. Customs official frowned.

It turns out, he said, that the runway at the international airport from
where U.S. anti-drug flights depart is too short for large aircraft.
Security is a question mark. And the location lacks everything from hangars
and mechanics to an ice machine in the pilots' lounge.

Referring to Howard Air Force Base in Panama, which was the nerve center
for U.S. counterdrug operations in Latin America until it closed in May,
the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "I wish Panama had
never gone away. It was a lot easier. All the infrastructure was in place."

Under the 1977 Panama Canal treaties, the United States must hand over full
control of the canal to Panama by the end of the year, shut down its last
remaining military bases and withdraw all troops from the country.

For the past six months, U.S. Customs, Navy and Air Force pilots have flown
out of the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curacao and the Ecuadorean
town of Manta on the Pacific coast. Once these locations are upgraded, some
U.S. officials claim, it will be easier to monitor sea lanes and air routes
for drug smugglers than it was from Panama.

But critics argue that problems at the new sites have reduced the number of
anti-drug flights. They say the United States should try to renew
negotiations with Panama and push for a reopening of Howard Air Force Base.

"We now have the worst coverage of drug-producing zones that we've had in
recent years," said Lester Munson, a spokesman for the House International
Relations Committee.

The Clinton administration spent years negotiating with Panama in an effort
to turn Howard into a multilateral anti-drug center after the canal closed.

U.S. officials wanted to keep Howard due to its immense size and plush
facilities. Over the last several years, 2,000 anti-drug missions took off
from the base annually. Other flights departed from bases at Roosevelt
Roads, Puerto Rico; Soto Cano, Honduras; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But Panama feared that an anti-drug center would seem like a de facto U.S.
base, a sensitive issue. Panama wanted restrictions on U.S. troop movements
at the proposed center and requested a multimillion-dollar annual rent
payment -- conditions that were rejected by U.S. negotiators.

U.S. officials were prohibited from approaching other nations for anti-drug
bases until talks with Panama broke off in September 1998. That left little
time to cobble together a new arrangement.

Instead of building bases from scratch, the Pentagon came up with a concept
called Forward Operating Locations, or FOLs, under which U.S. military
aircraft would be based at existing airports around Latin America and the
Caribbean.

The Netherlands and Ecuador endorsed the idea. In the coming months,
10-year agreements for access to Aruba, Curacao and Manta are expected to
be signed. A fourth FOL at the Costa Rican town of Liberia is being
considered.

"Normally it takes five years to move people and resources and for the
planning," one U.S. official said about the process of closing military
bases. Given the time constraints, "they've actually done a marvelous job."

The bases in Aruba and Curacao allow U.S. aircraft to monitor the Caribbean
Sea and Colombia. The Manta base is viewed as especially important, since
it provides coverage of the cocaine-producing regions of Colombia, Peru and
Bolivia, according to Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the U.S. Southern Command.

"At the end of the day, from this network of FOLs, we will have far better
and more efficient coverage of the entire area of interest from the
counternarcotics standpoint than we ever had from Howard Air Force Base,"
Gen. Wilhelm said last month in testimony before the Senate Caucus on
International Narcotics Control.

But all three locations require massive reconstruction. They lack ramp
space to park planes, and the runways are too short for some military
aircraft. The lengthening of the Manta runway alone will require $30
million worth of concrete, Wilhelm said.

One senior congressional staff member called Manta "the mosquito capital of
the world" and said bad weather and the lack of runway lights often have
kept pilots grounded.

Peter Romero, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric
affairs, and other U.S. officials admit that there has been a drop-off this
year in anti-drug flights, which is why they are anxious to improve the
FOLs. However, Congress has approved just $15 million of the $42 million
requested by the Clinton administration for the new bases in the next
fiscal year, a shortfall that could cause major delays in upgrading the sites.

There are also concerns about security. For example, the FOLs at Aruba and
Curacao are located at international airports that are swarming with
tourists from all over the world.

"It certainly makes it a lot easier for drug dealers to say when the
flights are going up," the congressional staffer said. "People can see that
P-3 going down the runway," he said of one type of anti-drug aircraft.

Others say, however, that using a variety of FOLs as replacements for the
single base in Panama means more options in the drug war, making it easier
to fool smugglers.

Another blow to the narcotics surveillance effort was the decision by
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who took office in February, to ban U.S.
anti-drug aircraft from entering his country's airspace.

As a result, flights leaving Curacao and Aruba must detour around Venezuela
to get to Colombia. The U.S. Customs official in Aruba said that of 32
recent drug-smuggling flights that were being tracked, 25 escaped into
Venezuelan airspace.

He also complained that Aruba is more expensive than Panama for U.S.
personnel.

"Our poor guys are spending all kinds of money here," he said. "To fill up
a Tercel costs $27. Gas is $3 a gallon. A six-pack of Coke costs $4."

Some U.S. politicians who are pushing for new talks with Panama on Howard
say that an American presence on the isthmus is needed to guarantee the
security of the canal, which will soon come under Panamanian control, and
to improve anti-drug missions.

Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who was sworn in last month, has
hinted that she would be willing to open talks about some kind of U.S.
military presence in the future. But many U.S. officials insist that this
is not a realistic option.

"The bottom line is that we could not reach an agreement with the
Panamanians," Ana Maria Salazar, the deputy assistant secretary of defense
for drug enforcement policy, said in a telephone interview.

"I'm not going to tell you that leaving Panama hasn't been difficult. It
has been very difficult. But we're trying to make sure that we develop a
strategy so that we'll have even better coverage than we used to have from
Panama."