CARACAS -- Radical Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he believed Colombian paramilitaries were plotting to assassinate him.

``Recently in Colombia there was a public document by the paramilitaries threatening me and others with death,'' Chavez said at a news conference after his weekly radio show.

``Not long ago a deserter from this group was interrogated and said that it was true that there was a plan to assassinate the Venezuelan president, among other people,'' he added.

The left-leaning former paratrooper has sought an active role in the Colombian peace process since taking office in February, offering to mediate between the government and Marxist guerrilla groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

His involvement has sometimes brought rebukes from the Colombian government, and made him an enemy of right-wing paramilitaries fighting the guerrillas.

It was not the first assassination plot revealed by Chavez, who led a subversive military movement in Venezuela for years before staging a failed coup in February 1992.

In July, Chavez said a gunman with false identification was seized at a rally in Cuidad Bolivar, a regional capital 375 miles (600 km) southeast of Caracas. And he claims to have identified various parties offering money for his scalp during last year's election campaign.

Chavez confirmed he had communicated with FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, but no date had been set for a meeting.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana has had only a lukewarm response to Chavez' offer to meet with guerrilla leaders and stressed that Colombia intends to resolve its problems on its own. However, a recent flurry of kidnappings of Venezuelans by groups operating from Colombia has highlighted the issue for Chavez' government.

Chavez has warned that Colombia could turn into ``a small Vietnam'' and insisted on the need for an international approach to end a war that has cost 35,000 lives in the past decade.