Reuters AlertNet Lite - Ecuador boosts security at Colombia border

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Ecuador boosts security at Colombia border

15 Feb 2007 23:46:35 GMT
Source: Reuters

QUITO, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Ecuador has stepped up patrols of its northern border to prevent Colombian planes and soldiers from entering its territory amid a diplomatic row, the country's defense chief said on Thursday.

Tensions between the Andean neighbors flared in December after Colombia resumed the aerial fumigation of drug crops, which Ecuador says harms people and farms on its side of the border.

President Rafael Correa, who echoes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's criticism of U.S. policies in the region, wants Colombia to halt all fumigation and conduct more studies on the effects of the herbicides used.

"The Armed Forces by orders from President Correa... will neutralize any effort to violate our national territory," Defense Minister Lorena Escudero told Congress in a briefing.

Escudero said patrols were being stepped up and radar screening increased, but did not give any details on possible troop increases.

She did not explain the meaning of neutralize, but a government spokesman said it referred to the procedure through which the military asks a foreign plane violating Ecuadorean air space to leave.

In the past, Colombia has called on Ecuador to help fight Marxist guerrillas along the border who fund themselves by kidnapping for ransom and smuggling cocaine.

But Ecuador, which has protested alleged territory violations by the Colombian army, has declared itself neutral in its neighbor's struggle against a 41-year-old Marxist insurgency.

Ecuador's government has vowed to sue Colombia to seek damages for the spraying along the border and recalled its ambassador last year in protest.

Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer, with an output of about 600 tonnes a year. Most of that is shipped to U.S. and European markets.

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Last updated:Thu Feb 15 23:48:15 2007