Orlando Perez
Special for La Jornada
The newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, September 17, 2024, p. 25
Quito, in the midst of his re-election campaign, President Daniel Noboa yesterday asked the National Assembly to make a partial reform to the Constitution to modify Article 5, which since 2008 has prevented the installation of foreign military bases, such as the one occupied by the United States in Manta, Manabí, for a decade.
Most analysts and constitutionalists who commented on the announcement see it as a proselytizing strategy, when Noboa’s popularity, approval ratings for his management and presidential prospects for February 2025 have declined.
Article 5 states: Ecuador is a territory of peace. The establishment of foreign military bases or foreign installations for military purposes will not be permitted. The transfer of national military bases to foreign armed or security forces is prohibited.However, a partial reform, according to the same Constitution, must be made via a referendum. Only constitutional amendments are made via the National Assembly.
The US military base in Manta was established following a cooperation agreement signed in 1999 by then-President Jamil Mahuad for a period of 10 years. When Rafael Correa assumed power in 2007, he announced that the base contract would not be renewed. And indeed, in September 2009, the US personnel had to leave this base and concluded their work there, with a series of complaints of human rights violations, sinking of boats with migrants and crimes by the US military, which were not tried in Ecuadorian territory. For example, Víctor Hugo Mieles, a veterinarian by profession, was run over and abandoned on the road by a marine, who took refuge in the base and immediately left by air bound for the United States.
What is not understood about this request –other than as part of the electoral campaign– is that since September 2019, through an agreement between Quito and Washington, a US Orion P3 aircraft has been carrying out flights to control drug trafficking and illegal fishing, using Guayaquil as a starting point, the main port from which drugs leave for Europe and that North American country.
With a video recorded in the same facilities where the so-called Manta Base operated, on the Ecuadorian coast, Noboa points to the US military withdrawal in 2009 as the cause of the increase in drug trafficking in Ecuador, although the figures point to said increase starting in 2018. In that message, without mentioning Correa, Noboa said: What they did was hand her over to drug trafficking. That was the first pact with transnational crime..
In the opinion of the Ecuadorian president, the moment of insecurity that the country faces, with transnational overtones, means that solutions and decisions must be internal, but also international: Time has shown us that old decisions only weakened our country..