Monitoring the U.S. Military Presence in Latin America

"....In 1999 and 2000, the U.S. government sought to replace the counternarcotics flight capacity that it lost when Howard Air Force Base ceased operations in Panama. It came up with the figure of “Forward Operating Locations,” later renamed “Cooperative Security Locations,” or CSLs.

Ten-year agreements allowed the establishment of three facilities where small numbers of military, Drug Enforcement Agency, Coast Guard and Customs personnel carry out counter-drug missions. The three CSLs are at Manta, Ecuador (the Eloy Alfaro International Airport); Aruba (Reina Beatrix International Airport) and nearby Curaçao (Hato International Airport) in the Netherlands Antilles; and at the Comalapa International Airport in El Salvador. The U.S. agencies’ personnel, plus private contractors, total about 450 at Manta and 250 at Curaçao, and a smaller number at the other sites. Most are aircraft maintenance, logistical, communications and intelligence specialists.

The 10-year agreements governing these facilities limit their use to counter-drug missions, mainly those of aircraft seeking to detect and monitor illegal drug-smuggling in the huge “transit zone” between the Andes and the United States’ southern border.

The agreements governing all three sites will be up for renewal within the next four years. The CSL whose future is most in jeopardy is Manta, Ecuador, which expires in 2009. In November 2006 Ecuadorans elected presidential candidate Rafael Correa, a critic of U.S. counter-drug policy who had promised during the campaign that he would close Manta. The day after his election, he said, “We are respectful of international treaties, but in 2009, when the Manta agreement expires, we will not renew that accord.”¹

Despite this uncertainty, it appears that CSLs, and even less formal arrangements, are the future for the U.S. military presence in much of the hemisphere. While the days of formal military bases appear to be over, “DOD’s proposal envisions a diverse array of smaller cooperative locations for contingency access” throughout the region, according to a 2004 Congressional Research Service report.²

Forward Operating Sites

In addition to the three CSLs, the Southern Command has a series of even looser arrangements, in which “smaller numbers of U.S. personnel on anti-drug missions have access to several foreign air bases for refueling, repairs or shorter missions.”³ These bases where U.S. personnel have access to facilities—known as “forward operating sites” or, more colloquially, “lily pads”—are a model being adopted even more vigorously in Africa and central Asia than in Latin America. The facilities usually have very few U.S. personnel or contractors on site, and in some cases are little more than refueling stops.

As security analyst Michael Klare describes the new “forward operating site” model:

In discussing these new facilities, the Defense Department has gone out of its way to avoid using the term “military base.” A base, in the Pentagon’s lexicon, is a major facility with permanent barracks, armories, recreation facilities, housing for dependents and so on. Such installations typically have been in place for many years and are sanctioned by a formal security partnership with the host country involved. The new types of facilities, on the other hand, will contain no amenities, house no dependents and not be tied to a formal security arrangement. This distinction is necessary, the Pentagon explains, to avoid giving the impression that the United States is seeking a permanent, coloniallike presence in the countries it views as possible hosts for such installations.⁴

Though this model is being pioneered more vigorously elsewhere in the world, the U.S. military does appear to have “lilypad” arrangements at several sites in South America—particularly Colombia...."

http://news.nacla.org/2007/09/18/monitoring-the-us-military-presence-in-latin-america/