I removed the private declatation and added latables[1]. It gave me the same compile error until I added the external command

PRIVATE lnctr
 laTables[1]
 EXTERNAL ARRAY latables
 CREATE CURSOR PackCo (flpack L, fctable C (10), fcdesc C (80))
 lcgroupcond = IIF( .NOT. EMPTY(ouser.fcgroup), "UPPER(uttable.fcgroup)==UPPER(ouser.fcgroup)", "UPPER(uttable.fcgroup)==UPPER('EVERYONE  ')")
 SELECT .F. AS flpack, fctable, PROPER(fcdesc)  FROM uttable  WHERE AT_C('M2MDATA', fcdatabase) <> 0  AND NOT UPPER(uttable.fcdesc) = "CUSTOM TABLE"  AND &lcgroupcond  INTO ARRAY latables ORDER BY fctable
 FOR lnctr = 1 TO ALEN(latables, 1)
    APPEND BLANK
    REPLACE flpack WITH latables(lnctr, 1), fctable WITH latables(lnctr, 2), fcdesc WITH i(latables(lnctr, 3))
 ENDFOR