NEIGHBORS DRAFT COUNTER-PROPOSAL TO PLAN COLOMBIA

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Colombia and six of its neighbors will hold
talks with President Bush (news - web sites) Friday to discuss a
counter-proposal to Bogota's U.S.- backed drug offensive, Venezuelan
Foreign Minister Luis Davila said Monday.

Davila said Bush would meet the leaders of the Andean Community --
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia -- and the presidents of
Brazil and Panama to discuss the regional impact of the $7.5 billion Plan
Colombia.

He said the meeting would take place in Quebec, where 34 Western Hemisphere
countries are holding a Summit of the Americas at the weekend.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been the most strident regional
opponent of the military component of the plan, which he has predicted
would drive Colombian narco-traffickers and leftist guerrillas across the
border into neighboring nations.

``The counter-proposal which we are trying to finalize at the moment is not
an answer to Plan Colombia, it is a proposal which unites the desire of all
the countries to escape from this problem,'' Davila said.

The clampdown on drugs production, backed by around $1 billion in mainly
military U.S. aid, has complicated Colombia's 37-year-old conflict between
the government and left-wing rebels and driven hundreds of refugees across
her frontiers.

The seven Latin American nations were seeking to increase the social,
economic and cultural elements of the U.S.-backed fight against drugs in
the region, Davila said.

A key concern was the need for the U.S. government to provide Colombian
peasants with real incentives to replace drugs with other crops.

Davila also suggested the United States ``should give preferential
(economic) treatment'' to nations involved in the war on drugs.

Chavez will travel to Colombia ahead of the Quebec summit to join a meeting
of the Andean nations of the U.S. Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).

Venezuela is seeking admission to this pact, which provides U.S. trade
benefits for countries deemed to be cooperating with the war on drugs.