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On March 31, 1999, the Ecuadorian government signed with the United States an "Agreement for the Leasing of Logistical Facilities," by which U.S. soldiers would operate the Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta on Ecuador's Pacific coast. The agreement, which lasts ten years and can be renewed for additional ten-year periods, involves an air base, a naval base, the Manta Port, and all the areas neighboring this infrastructure.
But grassroots opposition to the base and the election in November 2006 of left-leaning Rafael Correa as president may lead to the base's closure when its lease is up in 2009.
For more than 20 years, the Ecuadorian government consolidated the military complex involved in the agreement through the expulsion of more than 800 local peasant families. Nearly 25,000 acres of land around the Jaramijó naval base were assigned to the Ecuadorian Navy, but without establishing land boundaries. The dislocated families were never paid any compensation, nor were they relocated, which is why the farmers insist on recovering their lands. The land arbitrarily given to the naval base currently amounts to 60,000 acres, including a military training area, and affects five townships in the province.
The agreement was designed for the interdiction of drug trafficking. The Ecuadorian government it as an opportunity for the city of Manta's development: they said it would attract foreign investment, reactivate tourism, and create a new urban structure. Some human rights organizations filed suit against the agreement as unconstitutional, although the Manta population mobilized to defend it. The groups filing suit lost and the agreement was confirmed. In this process a dichotomy became evident between Manta civic organizations that defended the base and the human rights and social organizations that warned of...