* New accord focuses on anti-drug, counter-insurgency * Plan has fueled tensions in the Andes region By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, Aug 14 (Reuters) - A plan to give the U.S. military more access to Colombian bases will focus on anti-drug and counter-insurgency missions without raising U.S. troop levels over established limits, a senior U.S. defense official said. The proposal to allow U.S. forces to use up to seven Colombian military installations has stirred regional concern and fueled tensions in the Andes, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his leftist allies oppose U.S. influence. Washington says the plan is an extension of existing cooperation with Colombia, which has received more than $5 billion in U.S. aid to battle cocaine traffickers and Marxist FARC guerrillas fighting Latin America's oldest insurgency. "The missions are the same, which are counter-narcotics and its links with terrorism in Colombia," Frank Mora, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere, told Reuters late on Thursday. "We will have more access but that does not mean that we are going to have more assets or that we will have more troops," Mora added. Aided by U.S. funds, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has taken the fight to the FARC guerrillas, who have been driven back into remote jungles and mountains. Violence and bombings have dropped sharply and foreign investment has risen. But Colombia remains the world's top exporter of cocaine, with drug cargoes shipped via the Pacific to the north and through Venezuela and the Caribbean to Europe. The FARC remains a force in some rural areas, using hit-and-run tactics and ambush attacks on security forces. BROADER SHIFT The U.S. military's push into seven smaller Colombian bases is part of a broader shift in U.S. strategy away from large, permanent Cold War-style installations to smaller facilities leased from allies closer to hot spots around the world, another U.S. defense official said. The U.S. military has key operations in six countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region. [ID:nN14133344] In Colombia, those operations focus on training, logistical and intelligence support to enhance the Colombian armed forces. Under the current U.S. agreement with Bogota, American personnel levels are capped at 800 military troops and an additional 600 civilian contractors. That will not change, Mora said. The United States currently has around 260 troops in Colombia, officials said. "It is important to remember that neither we nor the Colombians want to have any U.S. assets that are of an offensive capacity," Mora said. But the proposal has met resistance in the region. Brazil, a regional powerhouse, expressed concern over the plan and others called it worrisome. Chavez, a fierce U.S. critic, and a group of leftists called the proposal an aggression. Chavez took economic measures against Bogota over the plan. "This agreement is a bilateral agreement. It is about deepening our relationship with the Colombians," Mora said. "It is no attempt to strengthen it against any other country in the region." (Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
Supporters of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez demonstrate outside National Assembly while Congress discusses an overhaul of the education law in Caracas August 13, 2009. A new education law is close to ...
