Neighboring Countries Get the Jitters over Plan Colombia Military Build-up

 
As Colombia's neighbors express concern over the flow of refugees and the increased US military presence expected under the Plan Colombia, the US is already boosting its military activity in the region. Support activities are being supplemented through already existing forward operating locations in the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao, along the eastern border of Ecuador and El Salvador. These bases serve as radar stations and launch pads for surveillance planes flying over the region. Between 10 and 20 US ground support personnel are stationed at each locale, but these numbers are expected to increase as the Plan Colombia gets underway.

Since mid May, the US ambassador to Panama and Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Peter Romero have approached President Mireya Moscoso about returning to bases only recently abandoned when the US Southern Command left the country. Panamanian officials familiar with the negotiations discussed some of the details of the US proposal with Salon News. According to them, the plan envisions Panama as a staging and rest area for troops rotating into Colombia to train and assist the Colombian military and national police. Military airstrips in Panama would be used for anti-narcotics surveillance flights, and training would be provided to the Panamanian police (the country has no standing army). Panama has so far rejected the US request, citing broad political opposition. "We do not want to become the next Thailand," says Marco Ameglio, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of Panama's National Assembly.

In the aftermath of the South American Presidential Summit, where the Colombian crisis dominated much of the discussion, Brazil is also analyzing how best to secure its vast Amazon border with Colombia. New military helicopters are intended to improve Brazil's ability to move troops in a region that at the moment is served by a lone C-130 Hercules. The general agreement is that nothing really is enough to control the huge jungle frontier. However, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is under pressure to approve a law passed a year ago that would allow the country's air force to shoot down unidentified planes crossing into Brazilian airspace. Presumably, the law is meant to target smugglers and drug runners, not off-course US reconnaissance flights, but it hints at the problems that could emerge from the military aspects of Plan Colombia.