Life after wartime: as Ecuador bids farewell to a U.S. anti-drug base, a town looks ahead to free trade.

The announcement by Ecuador President Rafael Correa that U.S. troops would leave the country's Manta air base by 2009 could be a worrying bit of news for the city that's home to the country's fourth-largest economy, but the government says the outlook is positive. The U.S. air base, part of the U.S. Southern Command, will be turned into an international airport, and the government says it will turn the city's port into a regional project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The Forward Operating Location, as it's known in military lingo, was put into place at Manta in 1999 as part of an agreement between the United States and Ecuador to fight drug trafficking. In addition to investing US$80 million in modernizing the city's air strip, the U.S. government had an annual budget of $6.5 million for the complex and bought another $24 million in fuels each year. Javier Delucca, the administrator of the base, says this money went into the economy of Manta and the province of Manabi.

Although Domingo Bruzzone, the Ecuadoran commander at Manta, says that the decision to close the U.S. operation will complicate U.S. anti-drug strategies, the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador, Linda Jewell, says her government respects the sovereign decisions of Correa's administration.

Jewell says that more than 60% of the illegal drug shipments stopped in the eastern Pacific were made possible by the U.S. military's presence in Manta. Its mission there is to provide logistical support to anti-drug efforts in the region and, in particular, airborne detection missions. The operation at Manta contributed to the confiscation or interdiction of more than 300,000 kilos of drugs valued at more than $10 billion.

The Ecuadoran government says the port of Manta will eventually become one of the main ports of entry for trade between Asia and Latin America, softening the impact of the base closing over the long term. The Chinese group Hutchison is investing $480 million to build a deepwater port in the city, work which began in January. A project to connect the oceans will include a highway from Manta to the Brazilian city of Manaus. According to Correa, the enormous project will cost $2 billion to construct.

"The Asians, as well as the United States and Europe, are interested in expanding trade in the region, which means Manta is an interesting alternative, one which optimizes costs, reduces turnarounds and guarantees opportunity in a global market where those who arrive first sell best," says Manta's mayor, Jorge Zambrano. He estimates that the city needs investments of $100 million to improve basic infrastructure, and that such a spending plan would serve to strengthen the city's economy.

Tourism. Business leaders and analysts say that although the development of Manta took off with the U.S. base operations in 2000, not renewing the agreement on the base will not result in a negative impact. Zambrano maintains that nearly 200 direct employees and 400 indirect jobs connected to the U.S. base will be absorbed into other public and private projects already under way.

Teddy Andrade, a city planner and council leader in Manta, estimates that since 1999 the city has taken in investments of greater than $250 million in the modernization and diversification of the city's hotels, both for business and tourism. Manta, he says, has become one of the major centers for development of projects in hospitality, tourism, finance and real estate, both domestic and international. Andrade says that Manta takes in a cruise ship every day and that each tourist who visits comes for an average of three days and spends a median $500 per day.

According to Ecuador's Tourism Chamber, 300,000 visited Manta in 2006, 35% of them foreigners, an increase of 143% over 1999 figures, prior to the opening of the U.S base. The city of Manta in mid-2006 signed an agreement with Intercredit, a Canadian company based in Costa Rica, to build a logistics center for cruise ships, an estimated investment of $150 million. The agreement included a plan to promote tourism destinations in all of Ecuador and to open five-star hotels.

The Manta Chamber of Commerce estimates that the construction of new buildings, shopping centers and other construction means $30 million a year, a quarter of which is financed by remittances sent home by Ecuadorans living abroad.

The Ecuadoran government is betting on Manta's development, with or without U.S. money. The decision to let the U.S. air base deal lapse may have been political, but the very presence of the operations might well have laid the foundation for an economy that will allow the town to live without a U.S. base in town.

MARIA ELENA VERDEZOTO * QUITO