STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Have you visited eBayTM lately? The Worlds Marketplace where you can buy and sell practically anything keeps getting better. From consumer electronics to movies, find it all on eBay. What are you waiting for? Try eBay today. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [There is a growing mass movement in Ecuador that is opposed to neoliberal structural adjustment and the increasing militarization of the Andes by the USA under the guise of the "War on Drugs" and Plan Colombia. The movement involves labour unions, student groups, workers, teachers, indigenous organizations, military figures, political parties, intellectuals, etc. throughout the country. The following is an appeal sent by Marcelo Ruiz, of the Association of United Ecuadorians, to all those that wish to support the struggle of the Ecuadorian people. For more information contact Marcelo at [EMAIL PROTECTED] to see how you or your group can get involved in this struggle. If Colombia is the US's next Vietnam, many are fearing that Ecuador will be the next Cambodia. I urge you to contact Marcelo and get involved before it is too late!!!] URGENT APPEAL: Please forward this news item, which was taken from the Ecuadorian newspaper "La Hora", to all your contacts and friends that are interested in showing solidarity with the struggles of the Ecuadorian people. The government of the Noboa Brothers initiated a cowardly policy of terror and war during the PSC-DP alliance of the Mahuad-Noboa era, by illegally signing and ratifying a so-called bilateral agreement with the USA, with the full ideological support of the Social Christian Party's Heinz Moeller. Today the government of the PSC-PD-FRA-PRE and other rightist parties are selling-out our homeland. [NOTE: These are al right-wing parties in Ecuador. FYI Mahuad was the former President of Ecuador, who was unseated by a popular uprising in January 2000, that was triggered by the neoliberal structural adjustment program he was implementing in the country (Noboa, the VP under Mahuad, is now President as a result and has continued the Mahuad regimes destructive economic policies). The agreement in question, between the USA and Ecuador, was an agreement signed by Mahuad, without Congressional approval, that ceded control of the Manta air-base in the northeast of the country to the US military.] Never before have we seen in the Andes anything similar to the current situation that the Ecuadorian people, and other peoples of the region, are being driven into at an accelerated pace by the USA and corrupt local leaders (with the exception, of course, of the massacres carried out by the Spanish Conquistadors against the original inhabitants of what we refer to today as Latin America!). Ecuador is now faced with the possibility of major upheavals and a serious social-political-economic and military crisis. The tranquility and tenuous civil peace currently reigning in Ecuador is being threatened and is in grave danger as a result of the threat posed by the Yankee military presence in this country, which is effectively usurping Ecuador's constitution, our sovereignty and even our national dignity. The government has lied to us and it continues to lie. The current crisis of the capitalist economic system in the region seems to have no other escape than to place all regional economies on a course of unprecedented militarization. The popular sectors of the Ecuadorian Congress need to remain preoccupied with this matter by demanding that an extraordinary session of the Congress be called in order to declare that the ceding of the Manta base was unconstitutional, to call for its immediate closing, to declare that the signing of this agreement was illegal, and that the unilateral decision to use this base for the purposes of military aggression against neighboring countries violates the sovereignty and dignity of the Ecuadorian people. It is necessary that we begin solidarity actions with all interested popular organizations and institutions before this situation reaches unmanageable proportions that may eventually cost the lives of thousands of Ecuadorian and Colombian youth of poor origins (while the children of the corrupt oligarchy, who do not need to do military service, spend their time out of the country!!!). On this subject, I would like to inform you that in Toronto, during a recent meeting of the Canadian-Ecuadorian Cultural Centre, among other things, the discussion turned to the American presence in Vieques, Manta and in Eastern Ecuador and it was resolved to initiate a campaign of legal civil actions, like the drafting of an open letter to the government of Canada, and calling for a hearing in the Canadian parliament for a motion that would be representative of the feelings of the Ecuadorian and Latino-Canadian community in order to demand an immediate withdrawal of all troops, consultants and foreign military advisors from Ecuadorian soil. The text is currently being written-up for the approval of the members of our local community organization, which is in charge of mobilizing the entire Latino-Canadian community into endorsing and supporting the Ecuadorian community's requests in the Canadian Parliament. We are hoping for your endorsement and support in this campaign, and that you will help collect signatures and carry out your own creative solidarity actions in the coming months. Only by standing united can we demonstrate our rejection of the militaristic preparations being made against the peoples of Ecuador and Colombia. Fraternally yours, MARCELO RUIZ THE ASSOCIATION OF UNITED ECUADORIANS ASOCIACION ECUATORIANOS UNIDOS (TORONTO CHAPTER) **************************************************************************** Ecuador is the Last to Find Out The USA will quadruple its military presence at its Manta base Saturday 14th of July, 2001 - 03H00 GMT The USA is going to quadruple its soldiers in Manta. How unusual! Even though the government said that there would be no more than 400 soldiers at the Manta base, the American Embassy just announced that it would quadruple the number uniformed individuals stationed at these facilities. Complete Text IPS KINTTO LUCAS The United States announced today that it would quadruple the number of active personnel at its Manta airbase, while retired Ecuadorian military officials have confirmed that that installation is designed to serve as a type of land-based aircraft carrier to assist interventions in Colombia and other Andean countries. Retired Colonel Faustus Cobo, ex-director of the Ecuadorian army's Military School, has told IPS that Washington is using the air base at the port of Manta, on the Northern coast of Ecuador, in order to directly influence the Colombian armed conflict, which will have consequences for the entire region. The declarations of Cobo, an expert in military strategy, were made after it was revealed that the United States will enlarge the number of active personnel stationed at the base, which is located on the Pacific Ocean, to up to four times the number established in the bilateral agreement between the two countries signed in 1999. We were the last ones to find out The decision to increase the military presence in Manta was publicly anounced last week by a source from the American embassy in Ecuador to the British newspaper "The Financial Times". At the Manta airbase, which was ceded to the United States for use in their struggle against drug trafficking, new adjustments are being made to the existing facilities. For instance the landing track is being extended to better support larger military transport planes. The American diplomat, while speaking to the London daily, announced that in October of this year, once the prolongation of the track is completed, the USA plans on adding an additional 200 active duty personnel from the Air Force and the Navy respectively, and a similar amount in the following months following this deployment, to its current force levels in Manta. Until last April, when the work on the landing track first began, an average of 100 active personnel participated in up to three daily missions, using F3 spy planes, similar to the one that crash landed in China on the 1st of April and caused a serious diplomatic row between Washington and Beijing. Peace? Plan Colombia, "ironically called a Plan for Peace, is an operation that is engineering death, and Ecuador is deeply involved in it", affirmed Cobo, who was one of the leaders of the military faction that supported the indigenous uprising that caused the downfall of ex- president Jamil Mahuad in January of 2000. According to this former military official, the theater of military operations designated by Plan Colombia is divided into an area of influence and another one of interest. Cobo argues that the first area involves those locations where military campaigns are carried out and seeks to integrate Colombia with its neighbors. "This is the reason why the American authorities are publicly stating that the Colombian conflict is regional", he adds. Cobo argues that the second theatre, the area of interest, does not figure directly into narrow military and strategic objectives, but seeks to exercise a political influence, in a direct or indirect way, with the aim of developing this warlike enterprise in such a way so as to integrate the rest of Americas into this project. "The Manta base allows the United States to act, via strategic, operational, technological and logistical means, upon the entire Andean theatre of operations", he argues. Strategy Furthermore, as this military strategist explains, Plan Colombia envisions a series of outward-maneuver lines, which consist in locating nuclei that have a strategic outer position in order to, from this vantage point, carry out operations against an adversary that is found in the inner position. "Troops are being mobilized, units deployed, control posts are being shifted, infrastructure is being upgraded or new infrastructure is being constructed, all of which allows us to deduce that the entire regional military machinery is preparing to spring into action", Cobo comments. He adds that a military campaign of such a nature will require the operational and logistical support of local port and airport authorities, "from where they can project their power ". For that reason, "Manta, for the purposes of Plan Colombia, is essentially a 'land-based aircraft carrier of the United States Navy' ", according to Cobo. He reminds us that, prior to Plan Colombia and the ceding of the Manta base, "Ecuador was part of communications network of the Colombian guerrillas". Zone of Conflict The guerrillas "used our territory for logistics operations and other activities. Therefore, if their lines of supply and communications are threatened, they must defend them, which means that our territory, sooner than later, will become a veritable battle zone", Cobo predicts. He believes that the role of the Ecuadorian security forces, within the context of Plan Colombia, is to sever these lines of communications and also to act as an anvil, while the Colombian Armed Forces, operating in the Colombia interior and in the south of that country, are to act as the hammer. He pointed out that the Colombian program anticipates an initial low intensity phase, lasting about a year, that is geared towards Putomayo and the rest of southern Colombia; a second phase of two or three years length, waged at average intensity, which will be oriented to the southwest and the center of Colombia; and a third phase that will involve all the neighboring countries within a period of three to six years. The retired official also analyzed the military strategies of guerrilla armies in order to explain the objectives of Plan Colombia. "In guerrilla wars there is a strategic and a defensive phase, a war of movement, that consists of using small mobile attack groups until a balance of power is established with the governmental forces, and then the last phase, a strategic offensive, begins and is defined by the use of larger units and the liberation of whole areas ", he states. Cobo indicates that, according to studies carried out by the Ecuadorian army, the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (the FARC) and of the National Liberation Army (ELN) had entered the "strategic offensive" phase of guerrilla operations in 1998. "The military strategy of Plan Colombia seeks to roll-back the guerrilla forces to phase one. Washington is hoping that Pastrana's program motivates the insurgents to yield at the negotiating table," affirms Cobo. An Observatory According to the Financial Times, the combined operational cost for the four new "forward operating locations" in the region are minor compared to those incurred at Howard air-force base, which the United States had to pull out of when it returned the inter-oceanic Panama Canal to Panama at the end of 1999. "From the Howard air base in Panama, we could reach Ecuador, but not farther south. Now (that) we are in this area we will be able to venture at any time towards Peru, Colombia or the Pacific Ocean ", said the embassy spokesman mentioned in the British daily. The Manta base allows the United States to observe the movement of narco-traffickers and to share this information with the authorities and the military forces of the region, said the spokesman. "This is not Plan Colombia, although the flights have a similar purpose. The Plan tries to end the trafficking of drugs as well as the cultivation and processing of cocaine. The Manta base will assist in preventing the transit of drugs via boats or small planes", declared the spokesman of the US embassy in Quito. It's Only Principle The United States has approved an economic assistance program of some 12 million dollars for Ecuador, which is destined for the police and the Armed Forces located on the northern border with Colombia, as part of the aid package to assist Plan Colombia. Hugo Unda, the Ecuadorian Minister of Defense says that "The aid is currently being processed, and it is basically aimed at assisting regional anti-narcotics efforts. But, and we are speaking transparently now: this aid has yet to become a tangible reality to the Ecuadorian Armed Forces". Unda also confirms that our country is constructing military facilities along the border and is beefing up the number of military personnel, arms and equipment in the region. However, he denied that Ecuadorian troops are receiving training for these operations from Washington. Obscurities - The agreement that ceded the Manta base to the North American Armed Forces was signed by Jamil Mahuad, the ex-chancellor Benjamin Ortiz and the present chancellor, Heinz Moeller, without being considered by the national Congress. - The government of Gustavo Noboa, that assumed power after the fall of Mahuad, ratified the agreement and at the moment is the greatest defender of the United States presence in Manta. - The Manta base is one of four "forward operating locations" in the region, along with the existing ones in Cura�ao, Aruba and El Salvador. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
