Word: colombian
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...When the Colombian military made its controversial incursion into neighboring Ecuador two months ago, it may well have removed more than just a camp full of leftist Colombian guerrillas. The raid may wind up taking out a $70 million U.S. Air Force base as well. On Monday, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he's "convinced" the U.S. aided Colombia in the March 1 attack and reiterated his suspicions that U.S. intelligence agencies had infiltrated Ecuador's armed forces and police - remarks that seem to all but assure that the small South American nation will not renew the lease...
...Colombian incursion, which sparked an Andean diplomatic crisis, appears to have given Correa the leverage he was looking for to make sure Ecuador's National Assembly doesn't renew that lease. "I'm convinced that the United States provided information and cutting-edge technologies without which the [March 1] attack wouldn't have been possible," Correa said on a visit to France this week. In addition to breaking off diplomatic relations with Colombia since the March raid, Correa has also alleged that U.S. spies have burrowed into his military and security forces. Last month he purged his top military brass...
...Accord), are now calling for an "audit" of the U.S. operation at Manta. That would include a probe of the flight of a U.S. Hercules C130 plane that took off the night of Feb. 29 and returned to Manta at 4 a.m. March 1, around the time of the Colombian sortie. Only one hour of activities from that nine-hour flight are logged on file - reflecting a longstanding complaint by Ecuadorian officials that Manta's flight logs are only partially open to inspection by the host country. "There is an information vacuum," says Assemblywoman Tania Hermida, a Correa ally...
...turf. In March 2003, three Grumman employees died in a single-engine-plane crash during a search for the hostages. (The U.S. now requires that twin-engine aircraft be used there.) But the hostages' families ask why the Bush Administration didn't provide more military backup on the contractors' Colombian missions. "Did they really never think this sort of thing could happen?" asks Gonsalves' mother Jo Rosano, of Bristol, Conn. "They sent civilians into a place they knew the rebels would be, and we get the impression they don't care." Rosano and others credit the new U.S. ambassador...
...Americans' captivity is part of the broader haggling between the Colombian government and the FARC over how to revive peace talks in a four-decade-old civil war that has left some 40,000 dead and millions more displaced. Racked by social inequities, Colombia has endured internecine violence for much of the past 100 years. "The FARC are like fish born in a tank that remains their entire world," says Colombia's Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo, who was a hostage for six years before escaping in 2006. "They're convinced they have the right to violently terrorize others...