CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez charged that Colombian troops entered Venezuela by crossing the Orinoco River, a move he warned was a "provocation" by his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe.

"We are not talking about a patrol with a few soldiers that strayed over a border" into Venezuela, Chavez said on his weekly television show "Hello President," without indicating when the alleged incursion took place.

"These troops crossed the Orinoco River in a boat and carried out an incursion into Venezuelan territory.

"When our troops got there (the Colombian troops) had already gone away," added Chavez, a leftist populist who has very strained ties with the conservative Uribe, the United States' closest regional ally.

Venezuela, along with many other Latin American nations, is incensed at a new agreement allowing the United States to use seven Colombian military bases.

"The Yankees are starting to command the Colombian armed forces; they are the ones who are in charge, who are in charge of these provocations, who make up huge lies," said Chavez, who has long been a thorn in Washington's side.

The Venezuelan president compared the situation in his country with the one in Panama before the United States invaded in 1989 during the Cold War.

"That's the plan they would like to apply to me. But things are different here. Today's Venezuela is not 1989 Panama, and Latin America today is not the same as it was back in 1989, when they (the United States) did whatever they felt like across the region," Chavez said.

Chavez also suggested preferential pricing for Venezuelan oil and oil derivatives may end for Colombia.

"The supply should stop, they can buy it at the market price," he said. "Why should we be favoring Uribe's government that way?"