(Ecuador's President) Correa to Boot US from Manta Base

[IndianaGreen]

This is part of the global initiative to kick out the United States from every foreign base it currently has. US military bases are a threat to peace, to people in their host nations, and to the environment.

Correa to Boot US from Manta Base

Quito, Mar 9 (Prensa Latina) Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ratified that US troops will withdraw from the Manta base in 2009, said Helga Serrano, spokeswoman of the "No Bases" Coalition of this country.

Serrano told Prensa Latina that Correa met with a group of participants in the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases and backed not only the withdrawal of US forces from Manta, but also the closure of all military bases of the world.

The president expressed his support for the struggle of anti-war movements by attending the "Anti-Bases" forum, which is expected to wind up on Friday in the city of Manta, Manabi province.

Serrano explained that 400 activists from social, popular and anti-war movements have unanimously defended this government´s decision of not renewing the US agreement on its Manta enclave in 2009.

On behalf of delegates attending this Conference, the spokeswoman from the "No Bases" Coalition, handed over the country´s president a copy of the declaration approved on Thursday, which condemns Washington´s intentions to control those peoples with military enclaves.

Prensa Latina

[Elwood P Dowd]

1. That would be a nice place to live.

People who visit some of their small towns in the mountains love it. Banos is one I think. Heard nothing but rave reports about the place.

[Vidar]

2. Applauding Correa.

[David__77]

3. US out of the not-US!

I support the closure of all foreign US bases. Nations must assert their sovereignty. Praise to Sr. Correa!

[IndianaGreen]

4. Link to one of the anti-foreign bases websites

there are several on the web, and there was a recent article in CommonDreams about this global movement. The movement includes people that want to close US bases in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and in Australis, and let's not forget Guantanamo and Diego Garcia.

CALL TO AN INTERNATIONAL GATHERING FOR THE ABOLITION OF ALL FOREIGN MILITARY BASES
ECUADOR, MARCH 5 - 9, 2007

The construction of foreign military bases in Afghanistan and Iraq; the cases of torture at the bases in Guantanamo and Diego Garcia; the construction of new bases in Okinawa; the "realignment" of military alliances in Asia; and the dramatic increase of joint military exercises as part of the so-called "global war against terror" have highlighted how foreign military bases, other forms of military presence, and militarization of whole societies are used to secure certain states and corporations interests at the cost of democracy, justice, and sovereignty around the world.

Another world will not be possible without abolishing these bases and demilitarizing global and national societies.

Over the past two years, we have been building up an international network to achieve this aim. Many of us have come together for the first time at the World Social Forum and other meetings as to form a global community. Our approaches vary, our concerns are multi-faceted, but our objective is the same: the closure of foreign military bases around the world. The times demand that we escalate our actions and improve our coordination. The next step in consolidating our community is to organize an inaugural Conference for our network. After much communication and deliberation we decided to hold this conference in Ecuador in March 5-9, 2007.

We hope that this conference will be the biggest gathering of anti-bases activists in recent history. We intend for the conference to provide an opportunity for closer, ongoing interaction; for sharing experiences, exchanging strategies and lessons learned; for laying the groundwork for more effective global coordination, and for building strategies for more effective international campaigning.

In organizing the Conference, we hope to further broaden the network, remaining conscious of the critical importance of grassroots anti-bases activists to be involved and to take the lead in building our global network. We call on all anti-bases activists, individuals, and organizations to be part of building this international network and campaign.

We call on the global movements for peace, justice, and ecological sustainability; those working in campaigns and mobilizations against war; the movement against corporate-led globalization and against militarism and imperialism; movements for disarmament and demilitarization; and movements against racism and for liberation and sovereignty. We call on grassroots women's, indigenous rights groups, environmental groups, faith-based organizations, youth organizations, sexual minorities, trade unions, social movements, human rights groups and other local, national and international progressive formations to be involved in and to contribute to building this global movement.

http://www.no-bases.org/index.php?mod=international&bloque=2&idioma=en

[Ghost Dog]

5. Yes. Now get out of Guantánamo, please.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concession_%28territory%29

Ah, and Diego García, while you're at it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia
John Pilger's "Stealing a Nation": http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3667764379758632511&q=John+Pilger+Stealing+A+Nation

[Judi Lynn]

6. You can be sure Bush is going to put up a fight over this.

It's a base they've poured a lot of money into developing within Ecuador's borders to allow them a huge place from which to navigate all over South America. From a quick search:

Eloy Alfaro Air Base
Manta, Ecuador
Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta is one of five primary Ecuadorean Air Force air bases. The "source zone" (SZ) -- Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia -- is USCINCSO’s number one counterdrug (CD) priority and several steps are being taken to increase the US presence there. The detection and monitoring coverage shortfall is mainly driven by the physical condition of FOL Manta, Ecuador, which restricts US forces to single plane, Day Visual Flight Rules operations. The result has been fewer hours flown over southern Colombia and the rest of the SZ than desired. USCINCSO has directed the Air Force component commander to develop a plan to increase the capability of the airfield as soon as possible. By 31 March 2000 the year the US achieved the capability to fly 3 aircraft from Manta at night and in any weather. This went a long way toward overcoming the current coverage shortfall. Longer-term, the US is addressing some other infrastructure deficiencies at the FOLs, such as ramp space and support, operations, and maintenance facilities.

The F-15 and F-16 fighters that protect the AWACs — known as Coronet Nighthawk — are flying from three forward operating locations: the Dutch Caribbean islands of Curacao and Aruba, and Ecuador. The three bases are closer to South American drug-producing centers and Caribbean trafficking routes.

The Department of State (DOS), which has the lead on securing long-term access agreements, concluded a 10-year agreement with Ecuador in November 1999. In 1999 the 12th US Air Force was tasked with providing support, literally overnight, to the Forward Operating Location (FOL) at Manta, Ecuador but had no assets available to complete the mission. They called for LOGCAP to provide two Spanish speaking FAA qualified Air Traffic Controllers to support flight operations out of this remote Ecuadorian Air Force Base. LOGCAP is a US Army initiative for peacetime planning for the use of civilian contractors in wartime and other contingencies. These contractors will perform selected services to support US forces in support of Department of Defense (DoD) missions. Use of contractors in a theater of operations allows the release of military units for other missions or to fill support shortfalls. This program provides the Army with additional means to adequately support the current and programmed forces. LOGCAP is primarily designed for use in areas where no bilateral or multilateral agreements exist. While happy with LOGCAP, the Air Force transitioned the program to their own AFCAP program as soon as it was available.

The US is spending $62 million to expand and improve the Manta runway and build hangars, dormitories and a dining hall. The number of US servicemen assigned to Manta has risen to 125 and that figure will reach 400 after construction work is completed in October 2001. At that point, AWACS surveillance planes and tankers to refuel them will replace smaller Navy aircraft, allowing the US to monitor air and marine activity far into the Caribbean. That will allow resumption of US anti-drug surveillance flights which were cut by two-thirds when US forces evacuated Howard Air Force Base in Panama in 1999.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/manta.htm

[Ghost Dog]

7. Re: "Forward Operating Locations" (FOLs)

(Don't you just love the euphemisms?): http://www.ciponline.org/facts/fol.htm

Ver también: FOL de Manta (US embassy, Ecuador) "Hay aproximadamente 15 militares estadounidenses trabajando a tiempo completo en el FOL como apoyo de los vuelos antidrogas. Dependiendo del número de vuelos, en cualquier momento, pueden encontrarse en el FOL un promedio de 150 pilotos, miembros de tripulación y otro tipo de militares estadounidenses que permanecen por períodos breves de pocos días o semanas. El convenio entre los dos gobiernos permite la presencia de hasta 475 militares de los Estados Unidos. Ningún miembro de tropa u otro tipo de personal militar que no sea necesario para las misiones está presente en el FOL.

El personal civil que trabaja en el FOL incluye 150 ecuatorianos que proporcionan servicios de apoyo como mantenimiento, alimentación, y prestan servicios médicos o contra incendios. Los empleados ecuatorianos que trabajan en el FOL a tiempo completo incluyen personas con discapacidad física a quienes el FOL ayuda a integrase en la fuerza laboral a través de un innovador programa.

El Gobierno de los Estados Unidos invirtió más de 70 millones de dólares para mejorar el Aeropuerto Eloy Alfaro de Manta y habilitarlo para los vuelos antinarcóticos. Además de las mejoras a la pista (que ahora es considerada una pista de primera clase que puede utilizarse para una amplia gama de vuelos), el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos ha invertido en una moderna iluminación y en mejoras al terreno del aeropuerto.

La operación del FOL inyecta más de 6.5 millones de dólares al año en la economía local de la ciudad de Manta..."

...Small fry, really, when compared with "Fantasy Island" (Diego) or, for example, the new bases in Iraq (eg: and also).

Edit: Just had to add the above Diego García link. Apropos ("watching the heaviest rain anywhere")? Funny ("commanders who were sent to the ends of the earth to get them away from important things they might screw up, never being able to leave a military base (the whole place is one big Navy base)")? Yes. But actually NOT, as you/we'all well know...

Another edit to add (re USUK Iraq bases): http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/04/iraqs-usuk-permanent-bases-intentional.html

[Judi Lynn]

11. F.O.L.'s. Right. (snort!) If they suddenly "won" the war on drugs, what ARE the chances they would

STILL hang onto these bases, anyway? They'd probably claim they are needed to keep track of rampant illegal JAYWALKERS in the Caribbean, Central and South America, because they are spreading the Jaywalking habit to the U.S., presenting a traffic hazzard which could cause traffic jams and get people here killed. Need to get them there before they jaywalk here.

VERY useful information. I surely didn't know about the bases in El Salvador and Curacao. I doubt a lot of people have ever heard of them, as well.

Here's how Reagan got control of El Salvador, if you didn't know. I just looked it up:

The insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala were crushed through the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians. In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole villages, such as the slaughter carried out by a U.S.-trained battalion against hundreds of men, women and children in and around the town of El Mozote in 1981.
(snip)

http://consortiumnews.com/2005/011105.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More on the US-driven massacres in El Salvador, to destroy poltical opposition by killing them:

Tierra Arrasada: Scorched Earth

The La Quesera massacre, which took place between October 20-24, 1981, was part of the Salvadoran government’s Tierra Arrasada, Scorched Earth, policy. Besides committing widespread acts of rape and torture, the army burned everything to the ground: crops, homes, animals and people. The government initiated the policy, inspired by their US sponsors, as a means to uproot popular dissent.

The Army strategy was to "quitarle el agua al pez" or "drain water away from the fish." Under "Scorched Earth," villages were systematically wiped out for harboring potential "guerilla sympathizers." Children were specifically targeted to eliminate the risk of becoming future guerillas. In the process, between 70,000 and 80,000 civilians were killed between 1980 and 1992. A United Nations-sponsored Truth Commission found that the Salvadoran Armed Forces were responsible for 95% of the human rights violations committed during that period.

In La Quesera, the survivors did not talk about what happened during those four fatal days. The government certainly did not talk about it. Memories were buried under the scorched earth for 20 years until 2001, when a local priest, Padre Pedro, was preaching about the importance of commemorating the martyrs of the better-known El Mozote massacre.

"When are you going to speak about our martyrs? When are we going to talk about our massacre?" asked one woman, bravely interrupting the mass.

"What massacre?" Padre Pedro responded, and the truth of a buried history was unearthed. Since then, a support group of survivors has been meeting to process the trauma. Survivors have exhumed mass graves to rebury remains and restore dignity to the dead. The support group purchased land on the Loma de Pájaro, one of the hills where the massacre took place, where they constructed a small monument and a painted mural under a dove-shaped roof. For the last five years, they have returned to this land to pray and commemorate their loved ones. In conjunction with the Legal Protection Office of the Archbishop of San Salvador, survivors recently filed suit to force the government to recognize the massacre and hold military personnel accountable.
(snip/...)

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/994/1/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sad photos of the aftermath of right-wing U.S.-trained death squad massacre of the citizens of El Mazote. Photos simply too tragic and graphic to repost:

http://images.google.com/images?q=El+Mozote&ndsp=20&svnum=10&hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en&start=0&sa=N

Click thumbnails to enlarge. The photos of citizens carrying small coffins portray the people carrying the remains of their loved ones to be reburied in a more honorable grave after they were massacred.

[Ghost Dog]

15. Some 1940s Chagossians (later expelled):

[IndianaGreen]

21. The protest banner reads "We are not an American colony!"

This is real freedom and democracy at work! When America speaks of freedom and democracy, what it means by freedom is the unlimited ability to impose its will on the people of the world, and what it means by democracy is that political power will always be at the hands of pro-American elites.

[xchrom]

8. as it should be.

should have been part of the ''peace dividend'' bush 1 used to crow about after the dissolution of the soviet block.

[Peace Patriot]

9. Thanks for the reminder! I'm old enough to remember the "peace dividend" that wasn't.

Boy, they filled that budget hole fast, didn't they?

Sigh.

[IndianaGreen]

20. The sham that was the Cold War was replaced by the sham that is the War on Terror

Our government uses fear to justify its large military and security apparatus, and to fill the coffers of the arms merchants.

Give up one Trident submarine and one carrier battle group and we can fund universal health care.

[lebkuchen]

10. Massive protests at Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, and now this

There were also protests outside bases in Germany this week.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Thank you, lebkuchen. We'd have never known, from reading our domestic sources. n/t

[Ghost Dog]

14. Re. Vicenza see here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6370671.stm

(& Prodi survived!!!)

As regards Germany (& elsewhere) activity, I'd like to see a link, please?

[lebkuchen]

16. We get specific warnings on e-mail at work

stay out of this area, or that area due to protests. Stripes didn't cover the protests around German bases, that I know of. I'll see if I didn't save one of the e-mails.

I'll post 'em in the future as I get 'em.

[arcos]

13. Correa rocks!

:yourock:

[donsu]

17. thank you Ecuador!

no military bases anywhere

peace

[Zorro]

18. This will have a serious economic impact on the region

Manta has grown significantly since the US expanded the base there. Removing the US presence will be quite detrimental to the local economy.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Apparently they believe it's better for the country to lose the unwanted pressure

from outside their country, just like the rest of Latin America.

Puerto Rico business interests fought it too, but in the end were shouted down by the decent, concerned citizens who didn't have the same greedy ambitions, and yearned for a cleaner, saner country WITHOUT the interference, bullying, and domination.

I can't possibly express my total disrespect toward anyone who supports intimidating other countries. How far do you think that fabulous money they get to use their country for an air base will go to repair the damage done to their country already?

~snip~
..... There is a deep distrust of U.S. motives in Ecuador and displeasure over its perceived excessive influence. Free trade is just one of many examples. Ecuadorians have had plenty of experience in recent history with the damaging costs of doing business with U.S. corporations, with one monumental instance dating back to the 1970's but continuing to this day. This is when Texaco (now owned by Chevron) began operating some of the country's oil fields in the Amazon region. When Texaco left in 1992, it is widely believed it negligently discarded toxic waste that some 30,000 Ecuadorians involved in a class action lawsuit against the company claim is responsible for a high rate of cancer and birth defects in the area, as well as irreversible environmental damage.

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Barack Obama (D-Ill) believe trade negotiations with the country could undermine this landmark case. According to a letter they sent in February to U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, "Chevron is reportedly lobbying Members of Congress and your office to use the leverage of the Andean Free Trade Agreement to pressure Ecuador to dismiss the case."

U.S. oil company Occidental has also drawn the ire of Ecuadorians and helped spark current protests. The company has been embroiled in legal problems with the government over alleged contract violations and disputed taxes. Occidental has offered $600 million in extra revenues and an additional $100 million for social projects to settle and keep its contract, which is at risk of being revoked. Yet despite this unusual "generosity" the company denies any wrongdoing.

Even more damaging was a recent article by journalist Kelly Hearn that revealed Occidental previously had secret contracts with the Ecuadorian military with terms that included requirements by soldiers to "carry out armed patrol" and "execute and supervise counterintelligence operations."
(snip/...)

http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/132/print

[Zorro]

22. Removing the base won't reduce external influences

Perversely, it may actually increase the influence of the Columbian drug cartels, as poverty in the region increases from the loss of US paychecks.

It's actually occurring now in Ecuador, and has drastically increased the the violent crime rate in Guayaquil and Quito.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Correa remark on Manta:

November 27, 2006

The Rise of Rafael Correa
Ecuador and the Contradictions of Chavismo
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

It now looks as if Rafael Correa, a leftist candidate in Ecuador, has handily won his country's presidential election. As of Monday morning, with about 21 percent of the ballot counted, Correa had 65 percent compared to 35 percent for Alvaro Noboa, according to Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal. If Correa wins, he will preside over Ecuador for a four year term.

It's yet another feather in the cap for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had long cultivated the aspiring leader's support. What's more, it's a stinging blow against the Bush administration which now must confront a much more unenviable political milieu in the region. Ecuador now joins other left leaning regimes such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Chile, all of which are sympathetic to Chavez.

Bush cannot dismiss the Correa victory as inconsequential: Ecuador is currently the second largest South American exporter of crude to the U.S. The small Andean country hosts the only U.S. military base in South America, where 400 troops are currently stationed. Correa opposes an extension of the U.S. lease at the air base in Manta, which serves as a staging ground for drug surveillance flights. The U.S. lease expires in 2009.

"If they want," Correa has said ironically, "we won't close the base in 2009, but the United States would have to allow us to have an Ecuadoran base in Miami in return."
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff11272006.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best wishes to Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, may he be assassination-free.

[Judi Lynn]

24. More from the article posted above, confirming indigenous Ecuadorians don't want Manta.

.... CONAIE, Ecuador's indigenous federation, in fact endorses many of Chavez's positions such as an end to U.S. militarization in the region and an end to neo liberal economic policies. CONAIE, like Rafael Correa, wants Ecuador to terminate the U.S. lease at the Manta military base. CONAIE, as well as the movement's political wing Patchakutik, has backed Chavez. CONAIE in fact has condemned the "fascist" opposition in Venezuela and derided U.S. interventionism.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff11272006.html