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Plan
Colombia, an ambitious and comprehensive offensive against
drug traffickers and the guerilla violence that feeds off of them, was
proposed by the intelligence apparatus of the US government under President
Clinton in 2000. In it’s current form it involves drug crop destruction
and fumigation of vast tracts of coca and poppies, combined with a multi-front
military offensive against traffickers and the militias and guerrilla
bands that protect them.
The entire effort is supported by the US in a number of ways; the Colombian
troops doing the actual fighting have been trained and supplied by US
military "advisors"; the arms, helicopters and communications
infrastructure are being provided by a number of US firms which have
been awarded multi-million
dollar no-bid contracts, and the entire operation depends heavily on
US intelligence in the form of satellite surveillance, electronic eavesdropping
from a high-tech listening post on a US airbase here in Manta, Ecuador,
and some actual on-the-ground infiltration of US trained observers and
agents.
In the popular press here in Ecuador, the prevalent and somewhat paranoid
public opinion is that the entire Plan Colombia has nothing to do with
the war on drugs. People here believe that the US government, despite
its public posture, secretly tolerates and even in some cases encourages
the production of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, for three reasons. First,
they believe that the big drug cartels have secret links to the US government,
which uses them to make off-the-books profits which they use to fund
secret projects and slush funds out of sight of the public, the media and the Congress
(might the history of drug traffic funding for the Contas in Central
American have something to do with this?). Second, they feel the drug
trade gives the gringos a handle to infiltrate, pressure and corrupt
the governments, militaries and police infrastructures of their own countries. And
third, they see the insatiable, multi-billion dollar demand for these
products in the US as the primary cause of their own drug problems, as
well as an invaluable and underhanded lever of control to manipulate
segments of the North American population, primarily youth and minorities.
Instead, the widespread impression is that Plan Colombia is part of
a general, insidious plan to control one of the last true undeveloped
resources of the planet: the incomparable natural treasure chest which
is the Amazon River basin. They believe the Plan Colombia is coordinated
with similar less publicized operations to infiltrate and establish bases
in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, as part of some super future plot
to surround and exploit Amazonian.
Here in Ecuador, there is a rising fear bordering on panic that the
current operative phase of Plan Colombia, called Plan Patriotism, which
involves massive spraying of suspected drug fields (which has led to
huge contracts to American companies), will have disasterous effects:
Among those with vested interests beyond the Colombian and US governments
are Texas’s Bell Helicopter Textron – which provides Huey helicopters
used to move troops and supplies, and Connecticut’s Sikorsky Helicopter,
which supplies Blackhawk choppers used to protect spray planes, as
well as Kansas’s Monsanto, which provides the Round-up Ultra used in
the spraying.
DynCorp, of Reston, VA, is the most vested of all: As the State Department’s
primary outsourcing company in Colombia it has a roughly $600 million
dollar contract to actually do the spraying and maintain the spray
planes and helicopters utilized in the fumigation operation.
(from Narco
News)
Their specific fears are twofold. First, that the sweeping hammer
blow about to fall on the Colombian drug mafias, leftist armies and death-squad militias, who
control key areas along the border with Ecuador, will bring a tremendous
wave of armed drug dealers, leftist guerillas and right-wing desperados
pouring across the porous border into relatively safe Ecuadorian territory.
And second, that the tremendous economic interests so threatened will
strike back at the nerve center of the American end of the effort – the
super-secret US Air Force spy base here in Manta, a veritable forest
of antennae, listening posts and electronic surveillance equipment,
all trained northward toward Colombia. There are tons of close-cropped
twenty-something
Gringos wandering around Manta these days – when the Dowbrigade inquired
innocently of one young lieutenant during our first few days in town
as to how many of our compatriots are stationed here, we got a "I could
tell you but then I’d have to kill you" look back and a terse "Can’t
say."
For years word on the street in Ecuador has whispered of a secret deal
between the Ecuadorian government and the criminal cartels in Colombia.
Mafia and leftist leaders were supposedly quietly allowed to periodically
hide out in northern Ecuador to "cool down" while officials looked the
other way. In return, the Colombians agreed not to allow the drug
processing plants, bank robbers and sophisticated kidnapping gangs
(Colombia is far and away the world capital of kidnapping) to operate
on this side of the border. Today there is widespread fear that
this de facto deal is in danger of breaking down completely.
If this happens it would he a major tragedy capable of making Ecuador
unlivable for foreigners, businesspeople and tourists in a very short
period of time, following the pattern laid down in Colombia. The
Dowbrigade is old enough to remember when Colombia was one of the true
gems of Latin
America; incredibly rich agricultural land, fantastic fruits and vegetables,
world class coffee, cocoa and cannabis, friendly people, staggering natural
beauty and a rich cultural heritage. Tourism was their number two industry,
right behind coffee. Now, you have to be crazy or suicidal to want
to visit the country.
We will continue to follow this story and post updates in this space.
Article from El
Universo (Guayaquil, Ecuador – in Spanish)
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