[maggief]

Good info here:

http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol6/v6n35milbase_body.html

EXCERPT

The Pentagon is also investing in its own new infrastructure in Latin America, with four new military bases in Manta, Ecuador; Aruba; Curaçao; and Comalapa, El Salvador, all known as forward operating locations, or FOLs. Washington signed ten-year agreements with Ecuador, the Netherlands (for Aruba and Curaçao), and El Salvador, and Congress appropriated $116 million in FY2001 for renovation of the air facilities in Ecuador, Aruba, and Curaçao. SouthCom also operates some 17 radar sites, mostly in Peru and Colombia, each typically staffed by about 35 personnel.

The FOLs and radar facilities monitor the skies and waters of the region and are key to increased surveillance operations in Washington’s Andean drug war.

[Malichi]

What about Echelon? You know the NSA's supposed ability to eavesdrop on any electromagnetic communication in the world. Wasn't that how the Russkies got one of the Cheznyian (sp?) generals? Echelon pinpointed him talking on his cellphone.
I'm sure there are tapes of all cell phone, land phone, computer and radio communications for the southern Caribbean on the dates in question sitting either at Fort Meade, MD or at Sugar Grove, WV.