(Sorry for the lame Pixies reference in the title).A vote by Ecuador’s popular assembly put another nail in the coffin to the U.S. presence at the Manta air base. Legislators backed the proposal to as part of a series of constitutional amendments which could be approved by a referendum later this year.
The proposal’s text took aim at the U.S. whose base in Manta is key to counternarcotics operations and is the only foreign military facility in Ecuador:
The position has been understood and we ratify the lack of interest to renew in 2009 the 1999 controversial accord to use the southeastern Manta military base by US military forces," states the text.
"Ecuador is a peaceful territory. It does not allow the establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities with military purposes. We cannot give national military bases to foreign forces, and we close any actions destined to extend beyond next year the presence of Pentagon troops in this nation."
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has been adamant in his opposition to the U.S. base in Manta and has vowed to reject renewing the base’s lease which expires next year. As we noted in January, a senior U.S. official doubted that they would pursue building “another large base in the region” if they’re booted off of Manta.
Sources- Reuters, Chicago Tribune, BBC News, Prensa Latina, The Latin Americanist, Lyrics Depot
Image- Living in Peru (“A U.S. AWAKS surveillance plane taking off from the Manta base in Ecuador.”)
When I was reporting on Ecuador in 2001, I found considerable intertwining of Ecuadorian military priorities with U. S. interests, especially around the issue of oil fields and pipelines. I had already witnessed a joint U. S.-Ecuadorian operation in 2005 on the Napo river where some oil facilities had been invaded by somebody unclearly identified (indigenous, criminal gang, rebels?) Those threads have been unravelling over the decade with a series of Indigenous uprisings and most recently the election of Correa. I suspect that the recent violation by the U. S. and Colombia attacking FARC in Ecuadorian territory was in part a re-assertion of US limitations on Ecuadorian sovereignty. I have written about the influence of the U. S. in Ecuador in a novel, The Mother Earth Inn, as well as in NACLA.
ReplyDelete(see http://www.phillipbannowsky.com or http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=454)