Venezuelan bank strike call worsens turmoil

09.01.2003 3.26 pm

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Venezuelan bank workers on Wednesday called a 48-hour shutdown of banking services this week, escalating a five-week opposition strike that has already crippled the country's vital oil exports.

The bank stoppage call spooked Venezuela's currency market, sending the local bolivar tumbling against the United States dollar.

Union leaders said the action by employees at private and state banks across the South American nation would halt services to the public on Thursday and Friday.

"We are calling for a complete banking stoppage," Jose Elias Torres, president of the bank workers' union federation Fetrabanca, told a news conference in Caracas.

Fetrabanca called the work stoppage in support of the gruelling strike launched by opposition leaders on December 2 to press leftist President Hugo Chavez to resign and hold early elections. The ongoing shutdown has crippled oil output and shipments by the world's No 5 petroleum exporter.

The Venezuelan Central Bank's bolivar reference rate against the US dollar closed 5.7 per cent down at 1507/1510.50 bolivars. The local currency's interbank rate slid by nearly 10 per cent against the US greenback to an average low of 1585 bolivars, traders said.

As the opposition's economic offensive against the populist president increased, so too did tension on the streets.

National Guard troops fired tear gas on Wednesday to keep back stone-throwing Chavez supporters who besieged the National Electoral Council in Caracas, where opposition leaders were holding a news conference. No injuries were reported.