* Hard-liners blast Colombia plan to host more U.S. troops * Uribe seeks backing for anti-drug plan in region * Peru, Chile say Colombia has right to decide on bases (Adds Argentine government source, Chavez sanctions) By Ana Isabel Martinez CARACAS, Aug 5 (Reuters) - South America's hard-line leftist leaders on Wednesday criticized U.S. plans to deploy extra troops at bases in Colombia, accusing Washington of using the war on drugs as a pretext to boost its regional military presence. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is meeting South American leaders this week to try to generate support for the U.S. plan to base anti-drug flights in the world's top cocaine producer after the U.S. military lost access to a base in neighboring Ecuador. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- a persistent critic of Washington -- said the Colombian plan could be a step toward war in South America and called on President Barack Obama not to increase the U.S. military presence in Colombia. "These bases could be the start of a war in South America," the socialist Chavez told reporters. "We're talking about the Yankees, the most aggressive nation in human history." Chavez, who has put his troops on alert in previous diplomatic disputes with Colombia, ratcheted up the spat with Bogota by barring Colombian state-run energy firm Ecopetrol <EC.N> from the Orinoco oil region and said imports of some 10,000 vehicles would be halted. [ID:nN05285665] A close Chavez ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca farmer who ousted U.S. anti-drug agents last year, said Colombia's drug-funded FARC rebels had become Washington's "best tool" to justify military operations in the region. "We can't have all these planes and military equipment concentrated in Colombia. This is against the FARC. This isn't against drug-trafficking, it's against the region. Our duty is to reject it," said Morales, who met Uribe on Tuesday. Uribe's security drive would give U.S. forces access to seven Colombian bases and increase the number of American troops in the Andean nation above the current total of less than 300 but not more than 800, the maximum permitted under an existing pact. OBAMA STRATEGY SPOILED? The uproar over Uribe's strategy could spoil Obama's efforts to improve ties with Latin America while carrying on the war on drugs, which critics say has failed. Obama won praise for condemning a military coup in June that ousted Honduras' left-wing president, but some have faulted him for not taking a more active role in talks to reinstate the deposed leader, Manuel Zelaya. Even Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the prominent moderate in the region, has expressed concern over the U.S.-Colombia talks on a bigger American troop presence and an Argentine government source said President Cristina Fernandez had told Uribe the plan was "worrying." Uribe also met on Wednesday with another moderate, Chile's center-left President Michelle Bachelet, whose government was more restrained. "The decisions that every country takes are sovereign and must be respected," Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez said. In Peru, the world's No. 2 cocaine producer, Uribe got support from President Alan Garcia, a pro-Washington conservative. Uribe was also due to visit Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. The Colombian president, who is deciding whether to run for a third term, has tense relations with Ecuador and Venezuela and is not visiting their leaders on his tour. Colombia has clashed with both neighbors on several occasions after the government's battle against rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, spilled across its borders. The guerrilla army is funded by the cocaine trade and has fought an insurgency against the state for 45 years. Chavez last week withdrew his diplomats from Bogota after the Colombian government said weapons bought by Venezuela in Sweden had made their way to the FARC. (Additional reporting by Carlos Quiroga in La Paz, Karina Grazina in Buenos Aires, Alonso Soto and Rodrigo Martinez in Santiago; Writing by Helen Popper)
Workers untie a mooring line from a ship carrying containers filled with rubbish from Britain before it departs from the port of Santos August 5, 2009. The ship loaded with 1,600 ...
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