Several lawmakers say multinationals that aid violent groups in return for protection are not being prosecuted.

“We will take a good, hard look at how American multinationals operate around the world, using Colombia as a model,” said Delahunt, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight. “It really deserves an exhaustive effort to examine where we need legislation and if there are gaps in our criminal code that allow U.S. corporations to aid or abet violence in other countries that erode our credibility and our moral standing in the world.”

Venezuela on Monday said it will not allow U.S. agents to carry out counter-drug operations in the country, accusing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of being a “new cartel” that aids traffickers.

Justice Minister Pedro Carreno said the South American nation suspended cooperation with the agency in 2005 after determining that “they were moving a large amount of drugs.” President Hugo Chavez at the time also accused the DEA of spying.

Just two weeks ahead of a high-profile visit by President Bush to Latin America, the United States’ key partner on the continent is engulfed in an extraordinary scandal that threatens to undermine the credibility of US alliances and policy priorities from Mexico to Argentina.

The widening probe linking dozens of political allies of Colombia’s president, Álvaro Uribe, to the country’s right-wing death squads and drug traffickers has started to erode support on Capitol Hill for Colombia, the biggest recipient of US aid outside the Middle East and Afghanistan.

“Rain forest trees can live for centuries, even millennia, so none of us expected things to change too fast. But in just two decades - a wink of time for a thousand year-old tree - the ecosystem has been seriously degraded.”

“The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat…”