Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has said the only way he will renew the 10-year lease on the U.S. military base in Manta is if the United States grants Ecuador a military base in Miami.
“If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorian base in the United States,” Correa said.
Prof. Fredy Rivera of the Latin American University for Social Sciences stated that Ecuadorians oppose the base primarily because they do not want to be involved in Plan Colombia, of which the base is an integral part. The Plan is a U.S.-funded counter-insurgency strategy against leftist forces in Colombia, crudely disguised as a counter-narcotics operation.
