Pubdate: Fri, 14 Apr 2000
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053
Fax: (213) 237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/
Author: Juanita Darling, Times Staff Writer

U.S.-SALVADORAN DRUG SURVEILLANCE PACT DRAWS FIRE	

SAN SALVADOR - Ghosts of the U.S. role in El Salvador's civil war are 
haunting a pact that would give this tiny Central American country a 
crucial presence in international anti-drug efforts.

Under a 10-year agreement signed by the two governments two weeks ago, 
Americans would fly drug surveillance missions out of Comalapa 
International Airport, U.S. and Salvadoran officials confirmed Thursday. 
The operations would close a gap in anti-narcotics monitoring that opened 
when the last U.S. bases in Panama closed Dec. 31, according to a U.S. 
military official.

But opposition politicians, speaking out Thursday, saw a different purpose 
for the renewed U.S. presence in this country where Washington supported 
the government throughout a 12-year civil war that left 75,000 people dead 
before it ended in 1992.

"It is practically an occupation," charged lawmaker Manuel Melgar of the 
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a political party 
formed by former Marxist guerrillas. Such objections put the agreement in 
peril because it is subject to ratification by the Legislative Assembly, 
where no political party has a majority.

The accord is similar to protocols already in place that permit the United 
States to use the airfield in Manta, Ecuador, and airports on the Dutch 
Caribbean island colonies of Aruba and Curacao. Those sites, however, do 
not share El Salvador's history of U.S. intervention.

In planning for the U.S. pullout from Panama, a result of handing over to 
that country control of the Panama Canal, U.S. military and drug 
enforcement officials had noted that they would need access to a Central 
American airport for surveillance missions. But negotiating an agreement 
has been difficult.

A location in northern Costa Rica was rejected because of objections from 
local residents, and existing U.S. bases in Honduras were deemed too far 
away to effectively monitor the growing drug traffic through the Pacific. 
"El Salvador is further south and further west," said Steve Lucas, 
spokesman for the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees U.S. 
military activities in Latin America. "It gives us reach further into the 
Pacific. This is going to improve the effectiveness of our 
counter-narcotics efforts."

He said $10.4 million has been budgeted for improvements at the airport, 
but a State Department spokesman said the costs will probably be much less. 
"It is analogous to an airline having a dedicated terminal at an airport," 
Lucas said.

Between 10 and 20 Americans will be permanently stationed in El Salvador as 
liaisons, while air crews, including pilots and maintenance technicians, 
will rotate through the country, he said. As many as 100 U.S. military and 
civilian employees might be in El Salvador at one time, he said.

U.S. and Salvadoran officials emphasized that the missions will be limited 
to surveillance and providing information that local drug enforcement 
officers can use to arrest suspected traffickers. Salvadoran military and 
police officers will be aboard most flights to coordinate with local law 
enforcement.

"It is in El Salvador's interest to take action against the corridors that 
drug traffickers have been using through Central America and the Pacific 
Ocean," said Justice and Security Minister Francisco Bertrand Galindo, one 
of the Salvadoran negotiators.

Crack cocaine use has been a growing problem in El Salvador and the rest of 
Central America in recent years, a byproduct of drug transit through the 
region. An estimated 60% of the cocaine traffic from South America to the 
United States passes through Central America and the Pacific coast, 
according to U.S. drug enforcement officials.

"This is not the direction we should be taking to fight drugs," said 
lawmaker Eugenio Chicas of the FMLN. Chicas had warned a year ago - after 
20,000 U.S. troops were sent here to rescue and rebuild in the wake of 
Hurricane Mitch, which struck in October 1998, the most devastating storm 
to hit the region in two centuries - that the humanitarian mission might be 
a prelude to renewed U.S. military involvement.

"This is leading toward establishing bases," he predicted. "The U.S. 
interest is in a sustained military presence. Instead of helping develop 
our law enforcement agencies, this castrates them."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Cesar Martinez argued that the agreement gives 
El Salvador much-needed technology.

"The Foreign Ministry is willing to listen to the FMLN," he said. But he 
added, "If the foreign minister thought that this agreement violated our 
sovereignty, she would not have signed it."
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