www.abs-cbnnews.com Thursday, January 30, 2003 1:28:34 p.m

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan private banks decided on Wednesday (early Thursday in Manila) to restore normal working hours, delivering a fresh blow to a faltering 8-week-old opposition strike against leftist President Hugo Chavez.

But striking oil workers at the heart of the opposition campaign stayed firm in their shutdown, which has battered Venezuela's fragile economy and rattled energy markets by slashing crude output in the world's No. 5 petroleum exporter.

Commercial banks, which make up nearly 90 percent of the Venezuelan financial sector, had been operating for limited daily hours and restricting transactions since December in support of the strike to pressure Chavez from office.

"This is a result of demands from the public and deposit holders ... banks don't belong to their presidents," Federal banking group President Nelson Mezerhane said after banking associations voted to restore normal hours beginning on Monday.

Chavez, a populist former paratrooper, had threatened to seize striking banks, schools and factories to break the strike.

As the shutdown nears the two-month mark, backing for the protest in non-oil sectors has begun to fray as private businesses and stores reopen to fend off bankruptcy.

Opposition leaders, who brand Chavez's rule as dictatorial, inept and corrupt, offered on Tuesday to ease their strike by exempting food production and education. But they have vowed to stay out until Chavez accepts elections. The president, whose term ends in 2007, has so far shown no signs of accepting their proposals for an early vote.

But economic pressure is building on the government. With the strike disrupting oil exports that account for half of its revenues, the government plans to slash its budget and has suspended foreign currency trading while it prepares a fixed exchange rate to protect its reserves.

Battered by economic uncertainty, the local bolivar currency has plummeted more than 24 percent and Venezuela's international reserves have dipped more than 7 percent to $11.05 billion since the start of the year.

Venezuela's sovereign bonds climbed more than 1 percent on Wednesday as the cracks in the strike gave investors hope that stalled economic activity and oil output could recover.

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup last year, has dismissed calls for him to resign. Though his popularity has fallen sharply this year, he maintains a solid base of support among poorer voters who believe his left-wing reforms are the key to a better life.

The Venezuelan leader, who led a botched coup himself six years before his ballot box victory, has fought back against the strikers by firing oil workers and deploying troops and replacement crews to oil installations.

"To the oligarchs, the immoral traitors who are threatening to oust me from government I say you will not manage it," Chavez said in a national broadcast.

Still, attempts to restart the industry have had limited success. Crude production stands at about one third of the 3.1 million barrels per day the OPEC member produced in November.

The opposition, a loose alliance of political parties, unions and business leaders, has struggled to present a united front recently as they debate strategy to sustain the strike. Some are pushing for shopping centers and franchises to reopen to ease the toll on the weakened private sector.

But the creeping rollback has left a question mark over the future of thousands of striking oil workers, who are demanding fired colleagues be reinstated. That could prove a sticking point in negotiations to end the strike as the state oil firm PDVSA is now more firmly under government control.

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web.baytownsun.com Contact our news staff at (281) 422-8302. By Robbie Magness The Baytown Sun Published January 30, 2003

BAYTOWN — Heading into the spring season, Lee College’s Diana Martin is the best player on the best junior college tennis team in the nation.

Forgive her if she has other things on her mind.

Martin, 20, a sophomore from Valencia, Venezuela, has watched as a nationwide strike in opposition to the proposed policies of President Hugo Chavez has crippled the nation’s economy.

Here in Baytown, 2,200 miles away, Martin finds herself unable to visit her parents, cut off from her lifelong source of emotional and financial support. Talking about the home she has not seen since Christmas 2001, her voice remains strong, and she shows a remarkable grasp of her country’s sociopolitical structure, but her emotions clearly play across her face and in her voice.

“I have a lot of feeling going on because me and my family are really close, and I know they are having a hard time,” Martin said Wednesday, as the Lady Rebels stayed indoors following the afternoon rains. “It’s like my mind is not completely here with me. It has been real hard hearing all the stuff about the political system, how horrible Venezuelan citizens are doing right now. How are my family and friends? ... It hurts.”

Venezuela, on the northern coast of South America, has reached a 60th day in an opposition drive designed to strangle the world’s fifth-leading oil exporter and force Chavez to step down or call for elections.

While Chavez so far has refused to give in, the strike has put Venezuela on the verge of economic collapse, caused long-term damage to oil infrastructure and forced Chavez to extend his ban Tuesday on U.S. dollar purchases to preserve foreign reserves.

For Martin, that means her family cannot send money to help her with everyday expenses.

“My parents used to send me money just from their account ... They would transfer the money from Bolivars to dollars. ... I can’t get money from my parents anymore.”

Martin’s tennis scholarship includes tuition, fees, books and food, but the college has no on-campus housing, so there are living expenses. Martin shares an apartment with two teammates, Adriana Garcia of Mexico and Kalie Koening of West Columbia, Texas.

“The main things I need, thank God, the scholarship gives to me,” Martin said. “But, when it comes to bills and all that, that’s when I need the money. ... They have supported me since I was 16. They have sent me all the money I need. Everything I need, they have been there for me.”

Martin came to the United States when she was 16, spending most of two semesters at Troy State University in Alabama learning English. At 18, she took an internship at the John Newcombe Tennis Academy in San Antonio, where she both taught and learned the game.

Lee College coach Jason Haynes saw her there, and she joined the Lady Rebels in January 2002. She is ranked No. 2 individually nationwide, and the defending national champion Lady Rebels are ranked No. 1. There is much to enjoy, but perspective can dull the shine on such things.

“I’ve never had to work in my life, like work for money,” Martin said. “At Newc’s (Newcombe Tennis Academy), I was in an internship. I was learning. But this is actually my first time that I’ve got to step up for myself and start getting my money somehow. That’s kind of weird. And I’ve got to do it. If not, I can’t pay my bills.”

Martin said she hopes to land an assistant trainer position with Lee College, and she will continue to help the team with summer camps, for which players receive some compensation.

Martin said she has missed her family all along, “but it wasn’t like I was worried about them or anything.

“Since the president got there, things have been changing, new laws that most of the people do not agree with. But nothing really bad, nothing as bad as it is right now. ... To be honest, I don’t think (Chavez is doing a good job). I think he is trying to be a communist instead of a democratic (president). ... He is a really good friend with Fidel Castro. That’s a huge thing. Everybody’s scared because he’s listening to (Castro). Let’s hope he doesn’t want to turn Venezuela into Cuba.”

Martin said one of the policies Chavez tried to implement which most affected her family was an “equal society” system, under which landowners with large holdings would be forced to give up some of the land. This was particularly important to the Martin family because Carlos Martin Jr., Diana’s father, is an administrator of a large ranch in Venezuela, the former King Ranch. Her mother, Elizabeth, and one brother, Julio Castrillo, 30, round out her immediate family.

“(Chavez) was trying to make it a law,” she said, “but in the end, it didn’t happen. But when people hear this, they try to go over the ranch and take over, and it was a pretty rough time.”

Martin said two people working as security for the ranch were shot and killed in such a clash.

It’s just one more thing for her to worry about as she tries to focus on graduating, tennis and what she will do after Lee College. She admits to having “no idea what to do next” but says she wants to stay in Texas, partly because of her boyfriend of two years, Jason Wilson.

Wilson, of Marble Falls, recently moved from San Antonio to Houston to be closer to Martin.

“I would like to believe that,” Martin says with a laugh. “I don’t know if it’s true, though.”

Meanwhile, her concerns for her family are never far from the surface.

“I would love ... to really believe that this is gonna end real soon, but I don’t see it at an end anytime (soon). ... I was supposed to go at Christmas with them, and I couldn’t, and that was a big deal for me — my first Christmas without my parents. That was hard for me. Martin reassured herself with the thought that she could go for spring break instead, but that possibility is dimming as well.

“Now that I’m seeing how it’s getting long,” she said, “I don’t think I’m gonna get to go. I would love to believe that it’s gonna end shortly, but ...”

Her voice trails off as she thinks beyond her family to her downward-spiraling homeland and the president at the heart of what amounts to a civil war — one that thankfully has not given way to full-blown violence.

“I think (Chavez) has a lot of pressure from the population, and he knows that everyone is against him,” she said. “I don’t think a country can last this long in the same situation that it is. I don’t think it could last six months more because this is ridiculous. They have no food.

“I say thank God they are on the ranch, my parents, because they can (get food), but for the people who don’t have that opportunity, the country’s just going straight down, and the petroleum and the economic system is going down. I would say that if the population keep up with what they are doing, I think sooner or later he’s gonna give up.

“It seems so funny to me. I’ve seen interviews of him on the TV, like with another country, and he’s like, ‘In my country, nothing is happening.’ And I’m sitting here, and I’m saying, ‘Come on. How can you lie in front of everyone?’ I think he’s trying to (make) other countries believe that nothing is happening, but he knows it is.”

She said the press in Venezuela is fairly free from government control and that, despite the rhetoric, the people “definitely” know what’s going on.

Forty years ago, Martin’s grandfather, Carlos Martin, left behind wealth and property in Cuba and fled with his family to the United States, after telling Castro he could not live under a communist regime.

The family spent nearly 20 years in the United States before resettling in Venezuela. Now, Martin’s grandmother, Annamaria Martin, says she is “reliving Cuba.”

It’s one more worry piled on an already overburdened Diana Martin. So well versed in the real world, she allows herself at least a fleeting moment of fantasy.

“One of my dreams,” she said, “is the United States going down there and taking over that country. That would be my dream. I know it’s not gonna happen, but that would be my dream.”

www.bday.co.za

CARACAS — Venezuela's main bank association has decided that financial institutions will resume full operations next week, after working half-day in support of a 59-day-old strike, Union Radio reported.

The decision came as the strike, aimed at forcing President Hugo Chavez from office, showed signs of weakening.

The oil sector, the worst affected by the protest, has started recovering, though daily crude output — which the government put at 1.3 million barrels — remained a fraction of the pre-strike level of over three million barrels.

Numerous cash-strapped businesses reopened in recent weeks, and strike organizers were considering reopening schools, shopping malls and fast food outlets shut by the strike.

AFP Thursday 30 January 2003

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.29.03, 8:50 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition on Wednesday extended into its 60th day a strike aimed at forcing leftist President Hugo Chavez to resign or call elections in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

The opposition strike, started on Dec. 2, has crippled the nation's vital crude oil output and exports, rattled global energy markets and shunted the OPEC member nation deeper into economic recession.

"Now, more than ever, (we say) not one step backwards," strike leader Carlos Fernandez, who heads the anti-Chavez Fedecamaras private business association, said. Striking employees of state oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) say they will stay out until Chavez resigns, stages a vote and reinstates fired oil workers.

But outside the oil sector, support for the shutdown has been fraying. Venezuela's private banks said Wednesday they would resume normal daily working hours Monday. They had operated limited hours since December to back the strike.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup in April, has refused to step down and sacked more than 5,000 PDVSA managers to counter the strike. The government plans to introduce a fixed exchange rate and capital restrictions to offset economic damage from the strike.

Deploying troops and replacement workers, Chavez says he is defeating the stoppage he calls an illegal attempt to oust him. While strikers dismiss his claims, oil production has crept up to about 30 percent of pre-strike levels.

Blue-collar oil workers have started to return to work, but backing for the strike remains strong among key PDVSA managers and skilled workers at oil fields, refineries and ports.

ipsnews.net

Humberto Márquez The nearly two-month general strike against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez began to wane Wednesday with banks returning to their usual schedules and other sectors beginning to normalise activity as well, while the opposition tries to avoid the appearance of defeat.

The association representing the country's 30 private banks, which handle 90 percent of all financial activity, ''decided by a two-thirds majority to renew normal hours of operation as of Monday, Feb. 3,'' announced the group's president, Ignacio Salvatierra.

CARACAS, Jan 29 (IPS) - The nearly two-month general strike against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez began to wane Wednesday with banks returning to their usual schedules and other sectors beginning to normalise activity as well, while the opposition tries to avoid the appearance of defeat.

The association representing the country's 30 private banks, which handle 90 percent of all financial activity, ''decided by a two-thirds majority to renew normal hours of operation as of Monday, Feb. 3,'' announced the group's president, Ignacio Salvatierra.

Since the strike began Dec. 2, the banks have only been open to the public for half their normal hours -- in the mornings --, leading to long queues of clients and prompting difficulties in other sectors of the economy.

The political opposition declared the nationwide work stoppage to demand a non-binding referendum in which voters would indicate whether or not the populist Chávez should immediately resign.

But on Jan. 22, the Supreme Court indefinitely postponed its debate on the constitutionality of the referendum.

Another aim of the strike, according to the business, labour and oil industry leaders who are heading it, is to show the world the magnitude of the Venezuelan people's opposition to Chávez.

The strike was further designed to pressure the government and opposition negotiators, engaged in talks brokered by Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary-General César Gaviria, to quickly come up with an ''electoral solution'' to the crisis.

Education Minister Aristóbulo Istúriz said 90 percent of the country's public schools are functioning again, while private schools have been holding assemblies to discuss opening their doors next week.

''We have a timetable for dismantling the strike without it being interpreted as a defeat,'' a Christian Democratic leader who has been one of the main organisers of the opposition protests told IPS on condition of anonymity.

''The logical thing is to start with the most sensitive areas, like the food industry and education,'' he said.

Since December, activity has been paralysed in shopping malls, department stores and the main manufacturing industries, although for some sectors the beginning of the strike coincided with the traditional December-January vacation period.

A large part of the country's small and medium industries continued to operate normally, including neighbourhood shops and bakeries. Mass transit was not involved in the strike, and many factories and other businesses had already begun to return to normal operating schedules.

Over the past week, central areas of Caracas and other large cities have experienced the habitual noise and traffic congestion seen after every annual vacation period, even though long lines of vehicles continued outside the service stations, as the Venezuelan oil industry is only beginning to restore production after it fell to a relative trickle.

On Sunday, the shopping centres will open their doors to opposition activists collecting signatures in support of various initiatives aimed at pushing Chávez out of power.

Petition drives will also be carried out in front of the hundreds of schools that generally serve as voting stations.

There are numerous initiatives for which signatures are being collected, including a constitutional amendment to cut short Chávez's 2000-2006 term, a referendum that would revoke his mandate, and a call for the creation of a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

A few days later, according to the opposition source, the malls and the franchises in Venezuela of international corporations will open their doors on restricted schedules, ''to maintain the climate of civic protest, the point towards which the current strike will ultimately evolve.''

The reduced hours will allow shopkeepers to readjust the prices of their products once foreign exchange controls go into effect on Feb. 5. The government announced the new controls after suspending foreign exchange trading by the Central Bank on Jan. 22.

Car-makers are negotiating agreements with their workers to put them on leave with partial payment of their wages while they sell off accumulated inventories.

General Motors, the leading automobile manufacturer in Venezuela -- the company sold 25,945 of the 74,560 vehicles assembled in the country in 2002 -- asked its 1,800 employees to remain on leave and to take a 25-percent pay cut until some 6,000 vehicles are sold on the local market or exported to Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, said the company's director of legal affairs, Luis Kolster.

Similar accords are being negotiated by Ford and Chrysler, while they await the reopening of their showrooms and sales lots. Much depends on the government's decision on foreign exchange, because around half of the components that go into each car are imported.

The strike's flagship industries -- those in which the two- month stoppage had most support -- include bottlers (of beer and soft drinks), flour, and food processing plants, which are to gradually reinstate operations throughout February.

The privately-held communications media, which halted broadcasts of advertising and changed their normal programming to focus on covering and promoting the anti-Chávez conflict, "will be the last to return to normal operations, though perhaps by Feb. 10," said the opposition source.

The oil industry, normally Venezuela's economic engine, has been the core of the power struggle here. The managers and several thousands of employees of the giant state-run Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) stopped working, halting operations at oil wells and refineries and on tankers.

Petroleum represents a quarter of the gross domestic product (GDP), half of fiscal revenues and 80 percent of cash inflows.

The country's normal output of 2.8 million barrels of crude per day fell to just 150,000 with the onset of the strike in December. Venezuela, an oil exporter for the last 90 years, had to import gasoline for the first time in three generations.

The government responded with an emergency plan backed by the armed forces, and has achieved a partial recuperation of production. Chávez says daily output now stands at 1.32 million barrels of oil. The opposition PDVSA managers' union, Gente del Petróleo, however, puts the figure at 1.05 million.

This was achieved "by overexploiting the fields of light crude, where are easier, while the heavy crude will be hurt because they are more difficult to reactivate, meaning the output levels from prior to the strike will not be achieved in the short term," a protest leader told IPS.

On another front at PDVSA, the government began rapid reforms "to streamline its structure and eliminate extra personnel," company president Alí Rodríguez said as he reported the layoff of 5,111 employees.

The anti-Chávez coalition is demanding amnesty for all oil employees who participated in the strike, "but the problem is that the government refuses to address the point in the negotiations," said Américo Martín, one of the six negotiators representing the opposition.

Officials say that some of the oil industry's installations were sabotaged. Administrative proceedings have begun against the leaders of the strike in the petroleum sector.

"For the saboteurs, there will be neither pardon nor amnesty," said Vice-President José Vicente Rangel, leader of the government's negotiating team. (END)