Ecuador to set up port authority at Colombian border
Ecuadorian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the country would establish a port authority in General Farfan near the San Miguel River to improve controls in its Amazon jungle border with Colombia.

"From there better control will include fight against illegal activities, like fuel smuggling and the illegal immigrant movement into Ecuador," said the statement.

Luis Yepez, head of the navy in the nation's joint chiefs of staff, has visited two army detachments in the Amazon province of Succmbios to determine what equipment the port authority will need.

The Ecuadorian authorities estimated that around 500,000 Colombians live in Ecuador and the bulk of these people are there illegally.

The nation currently has around 8,000 uniformed officers on the frontier to fight against rebel forces, drug traffickers and criminals on the Colombian side of the border.

On Tuesday, Luis Fernando Villota, mayor of the Colombian border town of Ipiales, told Colombian La W radio that former Ecuadorian army figures are creating "a storm in a teacup" at the border in response to an Ecuadorian claim that Colombians destroy boundary posts and install pylons in Ecuador.

He said it was an old controversy that had come to the fore, because Colombia and Ecuador have been already quarrelling over Colombia's spraying of herbicide in an area near the Ecuadorian border.