A march of 10,000 anti-Bush protesters, led by the footballer and television host, Diego Maradona, and addressed by Hugo Chavez, the firebrand President of Venezuela, is threatening to overshadow the start of a pan-American summit in Argentina today.

The protesters, marshalled by 8,000 troops and police officers who have been despatched to the resort of Mar de Plata to provide security for the conference, will hold a "People’s Summit" in the hours before the official talks begin.

The demonstration will criticise a free trade initiative which President Bush is expected to put before the Summit of the Americas in favour of more programmes to fight poverty and create jobs. Argentina is still suffering from the largest debt default in history in 2001.

Mr Chavez, an vehement critic of Mr Bush who models himself on the great South American liberators, Simon Bolivar and Che Guevara, will address the protest before attending the formal opening of the summit, where he has joked that he will sneak up on Mr Bush to frighten him.

In recent days, the Organisation of American States, a Washington-based group that organized the summit, has expressed its frustration that the US trade proposal, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), has dominated the build-up to the conference.

"This is not a summit about the FTAA," said Jose Miguel Insulza, the group's secretary-general, yesterday. Talks tomorrow are expected to focus on South American poverty. Nearly 100 million people in the region survive on less than one dollar per day, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, the American diplomatic team has complained about the posturing of Mr Chavez, who insists that the Bush Administration is determined to topple his government. For his part, Mr Chavez has promised to "bury" the FTAA and yesterday, Venezuela staged an exercise to prepare for a possible US invasion.

"Our respective governments have very different visions for the hemisphere," said Tom Shannon, the chief US diplomat for the Western Hemisphere, on board Air Force One.

"It’s thus hard to imagine a productive dialogue when the Venezuelan government has repeatedly made clear its negative intentions with respect to the summit and its personal animosity toward the president," he said.

"For our point of view, for the region to get the kind of growth it needs, to really begin to address some of the social problems... it needs a stronger trade base," said Mr Shannon, who promised that Mr Bush would listen to South American proposals to fight poverty.

The FTAA, which would aim to create a free trade zone the length and breadth of the Americas, was first proposed by the US in 1994. Supporters of the plan include Canada, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and the Caribbean nations.

But the South American trade bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay opposes the initiative and refuses to set a date to relaunch negotiations. "Every country or group of countries is standing by their positions and no one is ready to budge," said a source close to Argentine negotiators yesterday.

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