Word: ecuadorian
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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...
...President Hugo Chavez, has made no secret of wanting to give the Manta base the boot since he became President last year. He views the facility - which the U.S. Air Force calls a Forward Operating Location (FOL) and not a full-fledged military base - as an affront to Ecuadorian sovereignty. Many if not most Ecuadorians agree, if only because of what they consider the questionable circumstances under which it was established in 1999. That year the U.S. failed to reach a deal with Panama on continued use of the Howard Air Force Base for counter-drug operations. So Jamil Mahuad...
...town of Montecristi, where a 130-member constitutional assembly is at work writing a new Ecuadorian Constitution, the majority delegates from Correa's party, Acuerdo Pais (Country 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...
...have a rendezvous with history... Free Ingrid Betancourt." He has promised asylum for scores of imprisoned rebels whom Uribe now says he'll release in exchange for Betancourt. But since Uribe - a key U.S. ally whose father was killed by the FARC in 1983 - sent his army across the Ecuadorian border last month to kill the group's No. 2 comandante, Raul Reyes, the rebels appear deaf to the appeals. Reyes' death "provided the fatal blow to a humanitarian exchange," wrote Ivan Marques, an FARC leader, in a March 22 communique. That posture may bode ill for the U.S. hostages...
...Thursday meeting with foreign journalists, Correa reiterated that the lucrative coca trade is attractive among the remote and economically threadbare border communities. "A large part of the population, above all in Amazonia, on [both] the Ecuadorian and Colombian sides support the FARC," he said, "because the Colombian and Ecuadorian [governments] don't reach them, and the ones who provide jobs, in drug cultivation, etcetera, are the FARC...