Pubdate: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2007 The Miami Herald Contact: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262 Authors: Bill Faries, And Helen Murphy, Bloomberg News Service Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) COLOMBIA OFFERS BASE FOR U.S. ANTI-DRUG WAR The Colombian Government Agreed to Provide an Alternative Base for Counter-Drug Efforts if the United States Loses Access to the Manta Airfield in Ecuador The U.S. accord with Ecuador for use of the base in Manta expires in 2009. Ecuador's president has pledged not to renew the accord. Colombia has offered the U.S. government an alternative base for counter-drug surveillance flights if Ecuador evicts it from its largest South American military outpost, according to a senior U.S. defense official. Colombia said it would accommodate U.S. planes and troops now based at Ecuador's Eloy Alfaro airfield in the city of Manta, the official said. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who says the base compromises his country's sovereignty, has pledged not to renew a 10-year lease that allows 500 U.S. troops and eight aircraft at Manta. The accord expires in 2009. "This decision would increase the sense that Colombia is the outpost of greatest U.S. support in the region and that [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe remains a strong ally," said Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the New York-based Council of the Americas. "This would be met with a fair amount of popular support," Sabatini said by phone from Bolivia. Without a replacement, the loss of access to the Manta airfield will erode U.S.-led efforts to stem drug trafficking across South America and the Caribbean at a time the State Department says narcotics production is rising in the Andes and traffickers are shifting to Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has scrapped drug control agreements with Washington. Colombia's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on any plans for a new counter-narcotics base, a spokesman said. Surveillance aircraft, including radar-domed E-3 AWACS built by Boeing Co., take off each morning from Manta, flying out over the Pacific to follow the 4,000-mile route used by drug shippers heading to sea on their way to Mexico, Lt. Col. Javier Delucca, the highest-ranking U.S. officer at Manta, said in an interview. "If they are in the sea, we're looking for them. If they are in the air, we're looking for them," Delucca said. "And we find them." Coordination between Manta-based aircraft and the U.S. Coast Guard led to the world's largest maritime seizure of drugs in April -- 21 tons of cocaine on the vessel Gatun off the coast of Panama, said Aaron Sherinian, a spokesman at the U.S. embassy in Quito. The shipment, estimated by the Coast Guard to be worth $300 million at street value, represented about a month's supply of cocaine for the U.S. market, according to Peter Reuter, Director of the Program on the Economics of Crime and Justice Policy at the University of Maryland. Last year, Manta-based surveillance supported the seizure of 252 metric tons of narcotics with a street value of $5.2 billion, Delucca said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom