In the Empire’s Grip

It’s gotten lonely at the passenger airport in the Pacific Ocean port city of Manta, Ecuador, now that the $80 million U.S. Air Force base it once shared is gone. Last September, the Pentagon had to abandon its high tech center for satellite-supported electronic espionage in Manta. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa did not want to extend the agreement for the only air base the United States had in South America up to that point. Whoever landed in Manta before September couldn’t help but notice the AWACS surveillance, Hercules military transport and KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft at the airport. They used the same runway as the civilian aircraft for about 25 reconnaissance missions each week.

The Ecuadorian National Defense Ministry never knew where these planes were going. Die Zeit found out what it could about these missions. According to procedures, an Ecuadorian co-pilot sat in the cockpit during each takeoff. After a few minutes, once the airplane had left Ecuadorian airspace, he was always taken into a windowless room and not asked to return to the cockpit until the plane was making its final landing approach. During the intervening hours, the American flight crew was primarily involved in hunting cocaine and heroin drug runners in the Eastern Pacific region. This information comes from official reports of success in the war on drugs.

No one in South America doubts that the hundreds of missions each year have had any other purpose. But only now is there certainty about what has been going on since Álvaro Uribe, the right-wing conservative president of Colombia, Ecuador’s northern neighbor, has offered seven equivalent bases to the United States as a replacement for Manta. Only general details have leaked out after the agreement was signed on October 31. But the U.S. Air Force has already requested $46 million from Congress for the upgrade of the Palanquero air base in the middle of Colombia.

The Air Force’s justification was “development of this Cooperative Security Location provides a unique opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere, where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, anti-U.S. governments, endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters.” Palanquero is “essential for supporting the U.S. mission in Colombia and throughout the United States Southern Command Area of Responsibility.” Developing the base will increase the capability for intelligence operations, espionage and reconnaissance. It also provides the “global reach” to be able to conduct a rapid military operation.

This had all been clear enough, but barely noticed. And suddenly, in the middle of November, the first request justification was removed from a second official government document. Missing in that document were all references to global reach operations. The central position of Palanquero in the war on drugs was exposed.

It’s stupid that, at just the same time, a white paper from the U.S. Air Force on the strategy of global mobility turns up on the internet. Under point 12, “South American Strategy,” it says “until recently, security concerns in South America have focused on the counter-narcotics mission. That mission has not required the use of strategic airlift in its prosecution. Recently, USSOUTHCOM has become interested in establishing a position on the South American continent that could be used for counter-narcotics operations and as a location from which mobility operations could be executed… USSOUTHCOM has identified Palanquero… as a Cooperative Security Location. From this location, nearly half of the continent can be covered by a C-17 without refueling. Should suitable fuel be available at the destination, a C-17 could cover the entire continent.”

It’s too bad for President Uribe that critics in his own government have condemned the agreement in a scathing but non-binding assessment. The accord allows for amendments or changes at any time. It makes possible additional military bases and the infiltration of an “unknown number of personnel.” The United States can also establish an unlimited number of satellite communication stations free of charge and is allowed to observe third countries.

Colombian historian Gonzalo Sánchez says “our neighbors suspect that this will not be a matter of drugs in the long term. The United States really wants to have control over the Amazon Basin with its resources and check the rising power of Brazil in the global network.” It’s no wonder that Colombia has recently made an enemy of itself among its neighbors.