The neighboring country's strategy is to have mobile brigades. Ecuadorian units are permanent
Colombia has the most numerous army in Southamerica some 260 thousand men. Of them, however only 2% are outposted to their Southern border, that is, with Ecuador.
Fronts #29 and #48 of Colombian's Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) operate in this area reinforced by the Daniel Aldana mobile column. There are also armed columns Comuneros del Sur from the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army) and Libertador del Sur (Southern Liberator) belonging to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Colombian Self-Defense).
On the Ecuadorian side, on the other hand, there are more than 15.000 men which represents a fourth of the total number of armed forces; they are divided into an operations comando, a jungle brigade, two infantry batallions, a mechanized calvary group and a special forces unit.
Until last week there were some 12.000 soldiers, but presidente Rafael Correa ordered the deployment of another 3.200 on the weekend.
On the border between Esmeraldas and the Nariño Department there is considerable upheaval.
Marine infantry and the army added 300 new soldiers dedicated to patrol duty.
Last Tuesday members of the motorized batallion (BIMOT) located in Esmeraldas were mobilized to El Pan, Corriente Larga, and Tobar Donoso. The Northern operations command (COOPNO) did the same by transferring and undetermined number of marine infantrymen to San Lorenzo, Mataje and Corriente Larga.
Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Tamayo, head of Bimot, said he received instructions from his superiors to reinforce patrols along the border's 84 kilometers assigned to the army from Corriente Larga (ESmeraldas) to Tobar Donoso (Carchi).
"We duplicated the number of soldiers we had on the border and patrols are conducted 24 hours a day" he said without specifyng how many.
Marcelo Bohórquez , head of COOPNO, pointed out that soldiers were deployed to reinforce patrols and that these are merely normal maneuvers, "we have only reinforced supervision", he commented.
Luis Hernández, Cenepa hero and assemblyman for RED at present, claims that Colombia does not believe it is necessary to reinforce the border with Ecuador since more rebels are gathered in such departments as Chocó and Meta towards the center of the country.
Hernández says that the Colombian strategy is to maintain mobile brigades, taking advantage of all 106 helicopters in its possession which allows them to transport their people.
Ecuador has permanent outposts which are more expensive to maintain than mobile detachments. It can not conform batallions of this type because it doesn't have enough helicopters,; they total 35 but only two are operating in this area.
Marco Romero, director of the Masters Degree in Integration Program for the Simón Bolívar Andean University raises three hypotetical explanations about the absence of Colombian soldiers in the area.
"The most importante guerrilla contingent is to the Sout. The more numerous the more possible engagements which is perhaps what the Colombian government is trying to avoid", he held as first point.
It is possible, say this professor, that this is about a budgetary restriction or about different investment priorities. Colombia has economic support from the United States.
Spanish version
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