ECUADOR: Manta Air Base Tied to Colombian Raid on FARC Camp

[Judi Lynn]

ECUADOR: Manta Air Base Tied to Colombian Raid on FARC Camp
By Kintto Lucas

MANTA, Ecuador, Mar 21 (IPS) - Military and diplomatic sources see a link between the Manta air base, operated by the United States in Ecuadorean territory, and this month’s bombing raid by Colombia on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuador.

The U.S. air force was granted a 10-year concession in 1999 to use the base, located in the port city of Manta on Ecuador’s northern Pacific coast, in its counter-drug trafficking activities in the region.

A high-level Ecuadorean military officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS that "a large proportion of senior officers" in Ecuador share "the conviction that the United States was an accomplice in the attack" launched Mar. 1 by the Colombian military on a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) camp in Ecuador, near the Colombian border.
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"Since Plan Colombia was launched in 2000, a strategic alliance between the United States and Colombia has taken shape, first to combat the insurgents and later to involve neighbouring countries in that war," said the officer. "What is happening today is a consequence of that."
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The information gathered by IPS from military and diplomatic sources indicates that the Manta air base played a role in locating, and carrying out reconnaissance of, the FARC camp in Ecuador.

Read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41687