Table Of ContentUS Military Bases and Anti-Military Organizing
US Military Bases and
Anti-Military Organizing
An Ethnography of an Air Force
Base in Ecuador
Erin Fitz-Henry
US MILITARY BASES AND ANTI-MILITARY ORGANIZING
Copyright © Erin Fitz-Henry, 2015.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-50117-2
All rights reserved.
Chapter 3 is a revised version of “Distant Allies, Proximate Enemies:
Rethinking the Scales of the Antibase Movement in Ecuador,” originally
published in A merican Ethnologist , Volume 38, Issue 2, pages 323–337.
May 2011.
Chapter 5 is a revised version of “The Sovereign City: Negotiating Self-
Determination in an American Military Enclave,” originally published in
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society , 51, pages 153–183. 2010.
First published in 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN 978-1-349-57992-1 ISBN 978-1-137-48969-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137489692
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fitz-Henry, Erin Elizabeth, 1975–
US Military Bases and Anti-Military Organizing : an Ethnography of an
Air Force base in Ecuador / by Erin Fitz-Henry.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Military bases, American—Ecuador—Manta. 2. Military bases,
American—Ecuador—Manta—Public opinion. 3. Military bases,
American—Social aspects— Ecuador—Manta. 4. Manta (Ecuador)—
Politics and government. 5. United States—Military relations—Ecuador.
6. Ecuador—Military relations—United States. 7. Peace movements—
United States— History—21st century. 8. Militarism—United States—
History—21st century. 9. Manta (Ecuador)—History. 10. Ecuador—
Public opinion. I. Title. II. Title: Ethnography of an Air Force base in
Ecuador.
UA26.E37F58 2015
358.4(cid:2)170986634—dc23 2015006827
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Prologue: The Coca Wars at Empire’s Edge ix
Introduction Officers, Activists, and an Anthropologist
in an Imperial Contact Zone 1
1 A Brief History of Empire 27
2 “But There’s No American Base Here!”:
Becoming Domestic in a Foreign Sense 47
3 The Scales of Occupation: Becoming Regional in
an International Sense 81
4 Obligatory Charities, Generous Obligations:
Becoming Civilian in a Military Sense 117
5 The Return of the City-State? Becoming Autonomous
in a Sovereign Sense 149
Conclusion Becoming Colombian in an Ecuadorian Sense 183
Notes 197
Bibliography 209
Index 223
Acknowledgments
A
special thanks goes first and foremost to the people of Manta,
who let me into their homes and shared conversations about
topics on which we often did not agree. To the US Southern
Command, the US Military Group, and the anti-base activists working
in and around the facility between 2006 and 2009 I extend my sincere
gratitude for making my time in Manta both challenging and provoca-
tive. I have been changed in innumerable ways as a result of our conver-
sations. Thank you also to the many audiences, colleagues, and mentors
with whom I shared various drafts of this project at different stages in
its development, most notably colleagues at Princeton University and
the University of Melbourne. Last, to my partner, Victoria McLoughlin,
who has suffered through more fieldwork trips and garbled first drafts
than should be expected of any partner, my most heartfelt thank you.
PROLOGUE
The Coca Wars at Empire’s Edge
O
n September 15, 2009, the last radar planes departed from
what had been, for just under ten years, the US Air Force’s
largest forward operating location (FOL) in the Western hemi-
sphere. Located on the arid outskirts of the coastal tuna-fishing port
of Manta, Ecuador, it was a place, like so many others that continue to
serve as home to the more than 766 US military facilities currently based
on foreign soil, that remained largely invisible to the American pub-
lic. While US military operations throughout Latin America attained
marginal visibility during the War on Drugs of the 1980s and 1990s,
by the mid-2000s, attention to the region had largely been eclipsed by
the War on Terror, whose charred casualties refocused public concern
squarely on the Middle East. Though arguably quieter, however, the
War on Drugs that first brought US airmen and civilian contractors to
the city of Manta in 1999 has continued to surge, generating enormous
numbers of cartel casualties in Mexico and Guatemala (some 34,000
in Mexico alone between 2006 and 2010), a net increase in the amount
of coca currently being grown for the market in both Bolivia and Peru,
and a mushrooming basing infrastructure that rarely achieves even the
most minimal press coverage in the mainstream media. This increas-
ingly bloody illicit trade remains the US military’s principal rationale
for a continued and expanding presence in Latin America—a presence
that, since 2008, and under the stewardship of President Obama, has
extended beyond Manta into places as otherwise diverse as Colombia,
Panama, and even the long-neutral Costa Rica. To the dismay of many,
a recent report published by the Fellowship for Reconciliation even reveals
that under the Obama administration, US military construction in Central
and South America more than doubled between 2009 and 2010. Despite the
growing consensus among Latin American heads of state that legalization
needs to be much more seriously considered, new counter-narco-terrorism
