Less than a year later, torrential rains are once again dumping on Central America causing severe damage to fragile infrastructures not yet recovered from Mitch. In Honduras, the country hardest hit by Mitch, almost any heavy rain causes damage to roads, buildings and bridges. This project is timely once again and will help return the spirit of Christmas to people who may have lost everything they own.

Frank Galan, Senior Country Manager at Continental in Guatemala and Chairperson of the Toys for Tots project, says Continental hopes to make a big difference for the children of our neighboring countries. "All I can say is that "working together" is certainly exemplified here. Not only have we all together started something that is to help our fellow man but something unique in its own right because we are reaching the future foundation of our countries and possible new leaders in the decades to come." They plan to include Continental destination countries in the Caribbean to the project for next year.

Fundraising and organizing efforts are being arranged by staff at Continental offices in each country and the Latin American division at Continental Headquarters in Houston. Events will be held in each country, throughout the Houston area and within Continental facilities nationwide. Each country has a buddy at Continental Headquarters organizing toy drives, partnerships and logistics on the Houston end. A big part of the project is aimed internally from accepting toy donations to holding raffles and other events for Continental employees at company picnics, airports and reservation centers, and at the corporate headquarters in Houston.

The project is huge, with events being organized on all fronts. For example, Robert Schwager -- the Houston buddy for Honduras and Nicaragua for the second year -- has developed numerous partnerships including Churrascos and La Madeleine restaurant chains, Texas A & M University, Honduran and Nicaraguan student associations, and the Westin Galleria and Oaks Hotels. La Madeleine is participating by donating prizes of dinners and bakery goods for raffles as well as holding their own events within La Madeleine staff. Upon hearing of the project, Washington D.C. area La Madeleines decided to make Toys for Tots Central America their charity project for the holidays and are at work organizing their own fundraising projects.

Motivated by Hurricane Mitch, last year Churascos and the Westin Galleria and Oaks Hotels gathered donations on their own and contributed them to the Continental Airlines project for transportation and distribution to needy folks in devastated areas in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. This year the hotel is planning a Christmas event to raise funds for more toys.

Several events have been scheduled at Texas A & M University coinciding with their hugely-attended football games. A donation booth is set up to accept toy and monetary donations as well as hold raffles for airline tickets and La Madeleine dinners. The highlight event will be a Halloween party on Oct. 30 at the College Station Hilton. There will be a costume contest with the winner receiving a round-trip ticket on Continental Airlines. Runner-ups will receive coupons for dinners at La Madeleine. Additionally, a random drawing for another trip on Continental will be held at "the witching hour." Aggies can check the A & M Battalion newspaper for information.

The Honduran project, organized by Country Senior Manager Rigoberto Alvarenga, will include a Golf Tournament and Cocktail party to be held in San Pedro Sula to raise funds for the toys, as well as medicines, clothing, and school supplies. Funds will come from the tournament fees, auctions for trips on Continental Airlines, and additional sponsorships by Honduran businesses. The San Pedro golf tournament will have 25 teams of four players. Prizes will include trips, trophies, dinners for two and golf accessories such as putters, tees and gloves.

Distribution of toys in Honduras will take place in late November and early December and will be a collaboration between Continental staff, Honduran rotary clubs, the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Tegucigalpa and the Texas A & M University Latin Student groups. Similar arrangements are being made for the other Central American countries. Many are looking for local non-governmental organizations to assist with the distribution of the toys. Interested churches, schools, rotary clubs or other organizations should contact the Continental office in their country for information.

Contacts:

• Houston: Robert Schwager rschwa@coair.com (281) 553-1445
• Honduras: Rigoberto Alvarenga ralvar@hn2.com (514) 550-7128
• El Salvador: Joaquin Alegria jalegria@insatelsa.com (503) 260-3264
• Costa Rica: Rodolfo Saenz rsaenz@coair.com (506) 296-4913
• Belize: Kim Aikman kimflyco@btl.net (501) 27-0057
• Nicaragua: Luis Pedro Rodrigues mgagoco@ns.ibw.com.ni
• (505)278-2839
• Guatemala: Virginia Chang vchang@gold.guate.net
• (502)366-6425
• Panama: Argelis Roski aroski@coair.com (507) 263-9274

Texas A&M Students: 

Andres Casco aec3926@unix.tamu.edu (409) 695-7707

La Madeleine: 

Stacy Herring sherring@lamadeleine.com (214) 696-6962

In Congressional testimony October 13, IAF Chair Maria Otero said her Virginia-based agency, consisting of a staff of about 60 people, channels seed capital to "vibrant" non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to support productive enterprises at the local, community level.

By doing so, she told the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans' Affairs and International Relations, the IAF "works to strengthen free enterprise and democracy where it matters most -- at the grassroots level."

Otero said IAF grants supported micro-economic activities that led to a higher quality of life for Latin America's poorest populations, in addition to providing health services, housing, education, environmental conservation, and other needs. Since its creation in 1969, the agency said it has approved more than 4,000 grants totaling $450 million to support 3,500 organizations, many of them grassroots groups such as agricultural cooperatives or small, urban enterprises.

Unlike other development agencies, Otero said, IAF's "agility and private-sector focus on community-level development" makes it "uniquely positioned to forge innovative ventures" with U.S. corporations such as Levi Strauss, BP-Amoco, Dow Corning, and Green Giant, "to provide much needed seed capital for the expansion of micro-enterprises, the enhancement of sustainable agricultural practices and soil conservation, and the expansion of educational and health care services to the poorest peoples of the hemisphere."

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Christopher Shays (Republican-Connecticut) noted that IAF's original mission was to reach beneath government-to-government aid programs in the Americas to provide an economic and social alternative to the lure of Communism among the region's poor.

While saying he was keeping an "open mind" about whether the IAF should continue to exist, Shays said that since the agency's creation the "world has changed dramatically. The IAF has not." While many of the IAF's "once-innovative strategies" were being adopted by other aid agencies, the IAF "seems to have stagnated into a fractious bureaucracy squabbling over reduced budgets and a loss of power."

One major question Shays and other skeptics have voiced about the IAF is whether the agency should be incorporated into the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), or privatized, with private corporations compensating the IAF for its expertise. Market forces could decide the agency's focus and ultimate fate, goes the argument.

Reflecting that idea was Daniel Fisk from the Heritage Foundation, who said that what USAID and the IAF do in the Americas "is largely the same."

Fisk said that IAF support for NGOs was "unique 30 years ago, but today USAID primarily implements its programs through NGOs; in some cases, USAID grantees and IAF grantees are the same. Thirty years ago, the IAF's focus on broadening economic participation at the grassroots level was unique." Today, he said, "USAID shares the IAF philosophy and much of its methodology."

Under current circumstances, said Fisk, who is director of Heritage's International Studies Center, "it is hard to see how IAF programs are distinguishable from USAID programs. The same taxpayers are paying for both programs, and the duplication of effort is inefficient, which in turn reduces effectiveness in achieving the common goals."

In response, the IAF's Otero said her agency is different from USAID "and has a critical and unique role to serve in promoting participatory and democratic self-help development efforts in this hemisphere."

Most importantly, Otero said, the IAF does not provide resources through foreign governments, and thus avoids much of the "bureaucratic inefficiency that plagues other government-to-government programs."

Rather, she said, the IAF "responds quickly to private-sector grassroots development initiatives based solely on the merits of these proposals and their potential to achieve the goals established by poor beneficiaries themselves." The IAF, Otero continued, supports "innovative new concepts and approaches to address the most pressing needs of the poor based exclusively on these considerations rather than political factors. This novel approach ... sets this model agency apart from others."

Another witness, IAF staff member Patrick Breslin, said that appropriations for the agency's programs have dropped "precipitously, to the point that Congress just voted, in effect, a close-out budget of $5 million," compared to the agency's budget of $30.5 million in fiscal year 1996. "This suggests that as an agency we have failed to communicate the broader accomplishments of the IAF."

Breslin, IAF's representative for Colombia, said that his agency's accomplishments are not measured in Gross National Product "but in the thriving ... life now visible everywhere in Latin America." While criticizing his agency for its bureaucratic caution in recent years, Breslin said that IAF continues to fund the "ideas and dreams of tens of thousands of people. We are now seeing the cumulative impact of that in a more active democracy and a broader-based civil society" in the Americas.

The DEA said in an Oct. 13 statement from its regional office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, that "Operation Columbus" also resulted in the destruction of 464 acres of cocaine fields, the seizure of nine kilos of heroin, and destruction of 1,097 metric tons of marijuana. Working in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, the DEA said that anti-drug agents seized 1,250 gallons of Hashish oil, 10 kilos of opium poppy seeds, 16,880 tablets of dangerous drugs, and destroyed clandestine cocaine and Hashish oil production laboratories.

Also seized were 38 weapons, 26 vehicles, 27 vessels, one aircraft, $76,000 in cash, $215,900 in counterfeit U.S. currency, a residence appraised at $2 million, one gold bar valued at $20,300, 3,358 kilos of solid precursor chemicals, and 1,174 gallons of liquid precursor chemicals.

Operation Columbus was carried out in Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Aruba, Curacao, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

Among the objectives of the operation, the DEA said, were to "develop a cohesive and cooperative environment among source and transit countries," consolidate all counter-drug entities within each country, develop a comprehensive regional drug strategy, disrupt drug-trafficking organizations in the Caribbean area, and diminish the illicit movement of precursor chemicals.

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The report by the Santiago, Chile, Chamber of Commerce predicts a 26-fold increase in E-commerce in the region by 2003. The report added that there are about 100 million people in the world today connected to the Internet, with about 5.7 million of those in Latin America.

On-line transactions in Latin America by 2003 are expected to reach $3,800 million, compared to the anticipated $160 million in the region this year, according to the report.

It predicted that Internet growth will be common in countries like Chile that have a large, young population familiar from childhood with personal computers, electronic games, and cable television.

The study said that as in the United States, most of the E-commerce will involve sales of software and hardware connected to computers, books, tourism and travel services, clothes, music, subscriptions, gifts, and financial services.

An even greater amount of E-commerce for Latin America is predicted by another study by the Massachusetts-based International Data Corporation (IDC), which expects Web commerce in the region to reach $8,000 million by the end of 2003.

IDC, which has six country offices in Latin America, said that spending on Web commerce in the region reached nearly $167 million in 1998, an increase of 361 percent over 1997 levels. IDC predicted 175 percent growth of E-commerce for the region in 1999, which it said is far lower than the "potential spending that could have been realized had the region been experiencing healthier [economic] conditions. As the economic situation shows signs of improving, IDC expects the region to have an above-average compound annual growth rate [in E-commerce] of 117 percent between 1998 and 2003."

IDC said in its study, "1999 Latin American Internet and eCommerce Strategies," that the Latin American extension of the "information superhighway is more riddled with silver-lined potholes than it is paved with gold. The potential is real, but many obstacles need to be overcome before it becomes a reality."

These obstacles include weak credit card processing infrastructures, the high cost of basic Internet access, existing tariff barriers, and the high cost of shipping.

IDC bills itself as a leading provider of information technology data, industry analysis and strategic and tactical guidance to builders, providers and users of information technology.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A new United Nations report says concern for the environment has greatly increased in the Americas over the last decade, but the region still faces two major challenges: urban pollution, and the depletion of forest resources, especially in the Amazon basin.

The report, entitled "Global Environmental Outlook 2000" (GEO-2000), says that while many new institutions and policies have been put in place to protect the environment, these changes have apparently not yet greatly improved environmental management in the hemisphere.

Nearly three-quarters of the region's population is living in cities, many of which have severe air pollution ruinous to health, according to the report by the United Nations Environmental Fund (UNEP). For example, in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, bad air is estimated to cause 4,000 premature deaths a year. Waste disposal also remains a major urban problem.

Meanwhile, forest cover in Latin America and the Caribbean is steadily diminishing, according to the report. From 1990 to 1995, nearly 6 million hectares of forest were lost annually. The report identifies deforestation as a major threat to biological diversity in the region, which is home to 40 percent of the world's plant and animal species.

UNEP estimates that 1,244 vertebrate species are now in danger of extinction.

On the positive side, the report said, many countries have substantial potential for curbing their contributions to the buildup of greenhouse gases. Not only does the region have vast renewable energy sources, but there is also great potential for forest conservation and reforestation programs to provide valuable carbon sinks which lower pollution naturally by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

But the report added that environmental concerns take a back seat to economic development efforts and programs aimed at fighting poverty, due to "poor inter-agency coordination and the lack of focus on a broader picture."

On a global basis, the report's key finding was that the "continued poverty of the majority of the planet's inhabitants and excessive consumption by the minority are the two major causes of environmental degradation. The present course is unsustainable and postponing action is no longer an option."

The entire report can be accessed on the Internet at <http://www.unep.org/geo2000>.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The creation of new countries in the Americas could occur in the near future as the result of globalization, which has energized a "secessionist impulse" that knows no geographical boundaries, says Juan Enriquez, a former Mexican government official who is now a researcher at Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American studies.

Writing in the just-released Fall 1999 edition of "Foreign Policy," a Washington quarterly published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Enriquez argues that "most leaders throughout the Americas rarely consider the possibility that their current borders may shrink or even disappear." But he warns that the tide of secession that is "sweeping across the world today" is not simply a product of ancient nationalist impulses and catastrophic social unrest. Rather, he said, it is being driven by globalization, "which is breaking the world down into its component parts, even as it is drawing these parts closer today."

Enriquez' argument stands on solid ground, says Miami Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer. In a recent column, Oppenheimer noted the trend of an ever-increasing number of countries in the world. In 1914, Oppenheimer said, the world had 62 countries, 74 in 1946, and has 193 today.

Enriquez explains in his article, entitled "Too Many Flags," that the more globalized the world becomes, the less traumatic it is for nationalists to split from their states. Using the Canadian province of Quebec as an example, he said that globalization implies that borders become more porous to goods, ideas, capital, and people.

"If it is just as easy for Quebec to trade north-south, as it is east-west, Canada's market[s], not to mention its laws and rules, are no longer essential to the province's survival," Enriquez said. "In fact, small countries and national groups hoping to avoid domination by larger neighbors sometimes find open borders their best ally."

Enriquez, who was a Mexican government peace negotiator in Chiapas in the mid-1990s, said that so far, the Western Hemisphere is the one segment of the world that has seemed immune from secessionist impulses. Although the Caribbean Basin has continued generating microstates, he said, the last new border to emerge in the Americas was Panama in 1903 and before that El Salvador in 1841. With the exception of Quebec, "questioning flags, borders, and anthems typically does not form part of the discourse of even the most radical leaders in the hemisphere."

Despite that, Enriquez said, boundaries within the hemisphere are neither as simple nor as stable as they appear. The U.S.-Mexico land border, he said, changed as recently as 1963, and the current maritime border between the two countries was only approved by Congress in 1997. Newfoundland "reluctantly" left the United Kingdom to join Canada in 1949. Part of France's border, represented by St. Pierre and Miquelon, lies less than 15 miles off the Canadian coast. Quebec may separate, "perhaps leading to the dissolution of Canada."

For the future, Enriquez said, certain regions within large countries "not only may be viable as separate states but also may be far more productive when unbundled from their traditional borders." Within the Americas, he said, relatively wealthy areas such as western Canada, northern Mexico, southern Brazil, and Guayaquil in Ecuador have "voices of dissent within their boundaries asking what benefit they derive from their national identities."

This development, he said, has coincided with the end of import substitution, industrialization and the opening of borders. Countries and regions now depend on global, not local, markets.

In that regard, Enriquez said a nation's success in the global economy is not determined by the quantity of its natural resources, but by the quality of its human resources. Thus, he said, "if the key to prosperity is a citizenry with a high degree of education and entrepreneurship, some regions may decide that retaining ties to areas that are underdeveloped and prone to conflict is not a good long-term strategy."

Within Latin America, Enriquez writes, "many voices" are questioning the status quo, including Mapuches in Chile, Mayans throughout Chiapas and Central America, and descendants of the Incas in Peru and Ecuador. In addition, he said, protests and demands for autonomy are growing in the Guatemalan highlands as well as among Brazil's landless. Politicians in northern Mexico and Sao Paulo, Brazil, are increasingly vocal in their demands for local autonomy and fiscal control, Enriquez said.

Each group is asking, he said, "what benefits it gets from belonging to a state that does not deliver what it promises. None of these movements begins or matures by advocating the splitting of the country or the rejection of flag and anthem. But redressing old grievances or contemporary needs, if mishandled, can eventually lead to escalating demands for autonomy and even separation."

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Latin America's software industry is generating huge sales, new jobs, and tax revenues in the region, according to a new study by the PricewaterhouseCoopers management consulting firm.

The results of the 52-page study were released Sept. 30 at a news conference at the Organization of American States (OAS), which was a co-sponsor of the first hemispheric conference on "Responding to the Legal Obstacles to Electronic Commerce in Latin America." The study surveyed the software industry in 18 countries in the Americas, along with Puerto Rico, and estimated that in 1998 the industry generated $3,540 million in sales, 137,345 jobs, and $1,240 million in tax revenues for the region's governments.

By 2002, the study projected that the software industry will generate about 193,700 jobs and fiscal revenues of $2,400 million in the region.

PricewaterhouseCoopers said the perception still persists in some quarters that Latin America is "clinging to its old ways and its old industries, such as agriculture, natural resources, tourism, and basic manufacturing." However, the study contradicts such perceptions.

"The truth is that these 'traditional industries' are actually increasingly modern and technologically sophisticated," the study said. "Moreover, the Latin American economy is building capabilities in new industries including information technology. These new industries in turn also help modernize the older industries."

This assertion was supported by another sponsor of the conference, the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, a research group funded in part by the U.S. Congress and by cooperation agreements with the U.S. Department of State and the Treasury. The Center said that Latin America "enjoys one of the world's fastest rates of growth in Internet connectivity; demand for information technology is soaring." The number of Internet hosts in the region, the Center said, has increased at an annual rate of 144 percent in the 11 largest Latin American economies between 1993 and 1997. Some estimates, it added, have the overall number of Internet users in Latin America multiplying from 8.5 million in 1997 to 34 million in 1999.

However, the PricewaterhouseCoopers study warned that about six out of 10 personal computer business software applications installed in Latin America in 1998 were illegal copies. This represents not only serious losses for the software industry, but substantial numbers of lost jobs and greatly diminished tax revenues.

Reductions in software piracy, the study said, "can lead to dramatic increases in packaged software sales and consequent growth in jobs and tax revenues." The study said that if the Latin American average piracy rate (62 percent for personal computer business software in 1998) had been reduced to the level of the United States (25 percent), the resulting $5,320 million increase in sales of legitimate software products, together with the increase in directly-related economic activity, could have created about 206,000 more jobs and an additional $1,860 million in tax revenues in 1998

The president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias, said in a foreword to the study that the "proper use of information technology holds great promise for Latin American and Caribbean governments, businesses, and societies. Effective software management can enable governments and institutions to deliver services more efficiently and modernize their operations."

Along with Puerto Rico, the 18 countries surveyed in the study were Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Despite the general economic slowdown in Latin America in 1999, the United States sees little evidence that the region "is any less committed" to completing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by the target date of 2005, says Walter Bastian, director of the Commerce Department's Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

At a Sept. 22 congressional hearing on the U.S. commercial relationship with Latin America, Bastian said that completing the FTAA, and creating the world's largest free-trade zone from Canada to Argentina, would offer "unparalleled opportunity to business, farmers and working families, and strengthen the hemispheric move toward open markets under the rule of law."

Bastian said the hearing was particularly timely, as it was held fewer than 50 days before the upcoming FTAA trade ministerial in Toronto, Canada. The Nov. 3-5 Ministerial will be preceded by an Americas Business Forum Nov. 1-3, and a Civil Society Forum, both of which are being organized by the Canadian private sector.

Given the mandate to "achieve concrete progress" on the FTAA by the year 2000, the 34 countries involved have agreed to recommend a package of nine customs and several transparency-related business facilitation measures to be implemented by Jan. 1, Bastian said. The customs measures will result in more efficient customs processing for express shipments, low-value shipments, and business-related materials and equipment, he said.

The transparency measures, Bastian added, will take advantage of the Internet to make available information on the FTAA countries' trade laws, regulations and procedures. A full package of business facilitation measures is expected to be announced in Toronto, and "will provide needed impetus to the negotiations (on the FTAA) as we move toward their timely and successful completion," Bastian said.

Bastian underlined the importance of what is being called a "Committee on Civil Society," Bastian said. This Committee marks the first time in any trade negotiation that a formal mechanism will be provided for labor, environment, business and consumer groups, as well as other non-governmental organizations, to make recommendations on what should be included in a trade pact, he said.

From the outset of the FTAA negotiations, Bastian told the House Committee on International Relations' Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, there existed a recognition that all citizens should "perceive and identify" with the benefits of trade.

Regarding the hemisphere's economic situation, Bastian said the global financial crisis and lower commodity prices have had a dampening effect on Latin America's growth, while Hurricanes Georges and Mitch in 1998 took their toll on the Caribbean Basin. Bastian said Latin America's economies collectively grew only 2 percent last year, three percent lower than the year before.

Excluding Mexico, Bastian said, 1998 marked the first time since 1986 that U.S. trade with Latin America declined, with U.S. exports to the region "flat and imports falling." For the year, U.S. exports to Brazil dropped 5 percent, Chile 9 percent, Colombia 7 percent. U.S. exports to virtually all other countries in the region showed a reversal from recent double-digit growth. The U.S. balance-of-trade, although still in surplus at almost $900 million for the first half of 1999, has decreased dramatically by almost 90 percent from the same period last year, Bastian said.

More optimistically, he said that "recent reports indicate that the Latin downturn may be short-lived, with growth returning to many of the countries in the year 2000."

Another witness, U.S. Customs Service Assistant Commissioner for International Affairs Douglas Browning, said the FTAA "promises to have a profound impact" on customs procedures in the region since "the efficient processing of merchandize at ports-of-entry will be fundamental to the agreement's functioning."

However, he warned that freer markets also represent a "potential vehicle" for the trafficking of narcotics and laundering of the proceeds from transnational crime.

Browning said that open trade allows drug barons to use "innumerable methods to launder the proceeds of narcotics trafficking." However, he added that because international trade is the Customs Service's "core business, we are uniquely suited to address the issue. We are now educating those businesses which are involved in international trade and which are at risk of being victimized by drug-money launderers."

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The United States wants to use an air field in Costa Rica as a base to monitor narcotrafficking activities in Central America, says Charles Wilhelm, commander of the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom).

Wilhelm said in congressional testimony that although U.S. counterdrug needs for Central America could be met from any variety of locations, "my preferred site" is the town of Liberia in northwest Costa Rica.

Wilhelm said, however, that a U.S.-Costa Rica bilateral counterdrug maritime settlement needs to be completed "before we can logically open" what is known as a Forward Operating Location (FOL) in Liberia.

FOLs, Wilhelm said, are the "final, and from a counterdrug perspective, most critical element of the new theater architecture that will fill the void created by the loss of Howard Air Force Base" in Panama. The base was transferred from the United States to Panama earlier this year as part of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties giving the Panamanians control of the Canal starting at noon on Dec. 31, 1999.

The United States currently has FOLs at Curacao and Aruba in the Netherlands Antilles, and at Manta, Ecuador, Wilhelm told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control Sept. 21. Manta, he said, is "particularly critical" as it provides the United States "immediate access" to the "very important" Peru/Colombia/Ecuador border region, where the coca used to make cocaine is moved to laboratories, after which drug-traffickers ship the finished product to the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Wilhelm said the Central American FOL is needed to provide increased coverage of heavily-used Eastern Pacific drug-trafficking routes, "which we have not been covering adequately in recent years." The Central American FOL will also provide the United States with "overlapping coverage" of other drug-trafficking routes in South America.

FOLs, Wilhelm told the Caucus, are a "cost-effective alternative to overseas U.S. bases. They enable us to exploit existing host-nation infrastructure to achieve levels of coverage that will equal or exceed that which we enjoyed from Howard Air Force Base at a fraction of the cost when measured over a 10-year period."

A total of $122.5 million in Air Force military construction funding is needed in fiscal years 2000 and 2001 "to achieve the upgrades and expanded capacities" for the FOLs in the Americas, Wilhelm said.