Venezuela ? Hundreds of indigenous Venezuelans marched Friday to protest President Hugo Chavez’s threat to expel a group of U.S.-based evangelists, amid intensifying government scrutiny of foreign missionaries operating in the country.

The protesters – including some who traveled for days by boat from their homes in the dense Amazon jungle – showed their support for New Tribes Mission, which Chavez has accused of “imperialist infiltration” and exploiting indigenous communities.

Two weeks ago, Chavez ordered the New Tribes missionaries to leave the country, accusing the Sanford, Fla.-based organization of links to the CIA and gathering “strategic information” in the country’s Amazon rainforest.

Government officials and other critics of the evangelist group have since backed Chavez’s decision, accusing the missionaries of destroying indigenous culture and using their presence in remote, mineral-rich tracts of Venezuela to conduct reconnaissance work for foreign mining and pharmaceutical interests.

New Tribes has denied the accusations and is seeking a meeting with Chavez to try to resolve the matter, said a New Tribes spokesman, Ronald Van Peursem. He said the group believes the president has been misinformed about its work in the country.