ECUADOR HOME OF US ANTI-DRUG CENTER

QUITO, Ecuador - U.S. airplanes have started using an airfield
on Ecuador's coast as a forward base for anti-narcotics patrols to
replace the now-closed operations center in Panama, U.S. Embassy
officials said Thursday.

The first flight arrived Tuesday at the airfield in the town of Manta
on the Pacific coast, 170 miles southeast of the Ecuadoran capital,
Quito, embassy spokesman Mark Krischik said.

The United States has reached interim agreements to use airfields in
Manta and the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao off Venezuela to fill
the hole left by Wednesday's closing of the Howard Air Force Base in
Panama.

The United States had been flying 2,000 anti-drug missions a year out
of Howard air base, which was a major center for its anti-drug efforts
in Latin America, U.S. officials said. It was closed as part of the
U.S. handover of the Canal Zone to Panama.

The president of Ecuador's Congress, Juna Pons, called on the
government to provide details of the agreement on U.S. use of Manta.
He said Congress must approve international treaties, but were not
informed about this agreement.

The U.S. government is trying to negotiate a 10-year agreement to use
the airfields, known as ``forward operating locations,'' Krischik
said. The current agreement is for six months.

Flights will arrive at the Manta airfield from U.S. air bases and stay
for a number of days, carrying out surveillance flights over
drug-producing regions in Central and South America, he said.

The airfield in Manta will not be a U.S. base and will be run by the
Ecuadorean air force, Krischik said. U.S. forces will feed information
on drug trafficking to local anti-drug forces.

The base will be staffed by eight to 15 Americans, but the number
could swell to 250 if patrol flights increase.

Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, Ecuador's South American neighbors,
produce nearly all of the world's cocaine.