news.bbc.co.uk Wednesday, 29 January, 2003, 21:06 GMT

Venezuelan banks are to end their nationwide strike on 3 February, following reports that president Hugo Chavez would punish those that didn't resume normal hours.

The banking sector said it would return to working a full seven hours a day instead of the three hours per day they have been working since the strikes began.

This is the result of demands from the public and deposit holders

Nelson Mezerhane, Federal banking group president

The eight-week old protests, which began on 2 December, were aimed at forcing Mr Chavez from office.

But the president had threatened to seize schools, banks and factories to break the strike.

Dwindling enthusiasm

The National Banking Council and the Venezuelan Banking Association said they have decided by a two-thirds vote to restart normal operating hours from Monday.

"This is the result of demands from the public and deposit holders," said Nelson Mezerhane, president of the Federal banking group.

"Banks don't belong to their presidents but to their deposit holders."

Support for the near-two month strikes had been starting to wane in the non-oil sectors, as businesses were forced to reopen to avoid bankruptcy.

The strikes have forced Venezuelans to queue for cash, food and gas, and sparked angry protests in which at least seven people have been killed.

Management at shopping centres, restaurants and schools were also reportedly planning to return to work on Monday.

Oil strike continues?

But oil workers at the heart of the opposition campaign vowed to continue.

More than 5,000 Venezuelan oil workers have been fired since they began their strike.

And oil production has almost ceased in Venezuela - the world's fifth largest oil exporting country - helping to send crude oil prices two-year highs.

The strikes have so far cost Venezuela more than $4bn (£2.4bn) and some analysts are predicting the economy will shrink by 25% in 2003, after contracting by 8% in 2002.

Opposition leaders are trying to change the constitution to shorten Mr Chavez's term in office from seven years to four.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.29.03, 2:25 PM ET

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The Central Bank chiefs from Colombia and Venezuela will soon meet in the Colombian city of Cartagena to discuss concerns that planned Venezuelan currency controls could disrupt debt payments, Colombia's government said on Wednesday.

Colombia, which counts Venezuela as its No. 2 trading partner behind the United States, is concerned that Venezuelan businessmen will not be able to repay their sizable debts to Colombian merchants once the controls are imposed, possibly next week.

"In the coming days, these payment issues will be discussed by Central Bank directors from Colombia and Venezuelan," Finance Minister Roberto Junguito told reporters. Cartagena is Colombia's top tourist destination, a colonial town on the Caribbean coast where business meetings are frequently held.

Strike-bound Venezuela announced on Sunday it will use currency controls to protect international reserves. Government and banking sources said discussions are focused on creating a single rate for the beleaguered bolivar currency lasting four months, adjusted monthly, followed by a dual rate.

Venezuela's bolivar has slipped 28 percent against the dollar since opposition leaders launched a general strike on Dec 1, stemming oil exports from the world's No. 5 oil exporter in a bid to force President Hugo Chavez from power.

Colombia's banking association sounded the alarm over potential payment problems earlier this week, but did not provide liability figures. Analysts estimate Venezuelan businesses owe about $200 million to Colombian firms.

Between January and November last year, Colombia exported $1.07 billion to Venezuela. The figure is 33 percent lower than in the same period of 2001, showing economic troubles well beforethe damaging general strike begun in December.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 1:39:14 PM By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executives & managers trade union (Unapetrol) adviser, Edgar Quijano says the association is lodging a formal complaint at the International Labor Organization (ILO) HQ in Geneva over the dismissal of 4,500 oil workers, who downed tools to join the national stoppage in December.

“4,500 of 38,500 oil sector workers were given the sack illegally and in an arbitrary fashion, violating a government decree prohibiting employers from laying off workers.”

Quijano, who was himself given the boot, says the Chavez Frias government has violated PDVSA staff’s right to strike … “70% of those sacked belonged to the so-called major payroll including secretaries, operational and administrative staff and only 20% were top management.”

Quijano rejects charges of sabotage and challenges President Chavez Frias to provide evidence … “we handed over all oil industry installations in perfect conditions, as state prosecutors and judges can testify.”

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, January 27, 2003 - 3:01:12 AM By: Hector Dauphin-Gloire

Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 17:23:24 -0500 From: Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com To: Editor@vheadline.com Subject: Thank you for your service to the truth!

Dear Editor: I wish to thank you immensely for the service you are doing the whole world by courageously reporting a balanced viewpoint about the Venezuelan situation.

• In the barrage of half-truths and misrepresentations that come from the private media we seem to hear all manners of petulant complaints by an oligarchy intent on preserving its power.

Domestic readers can at least hear from the government and community media (thank God that they exist) but as far as I know there is no English-language service which provides a point of view sympathetic to the government, besides your own. *

But we should not be so hard on the Venezuelan private media. Sure, they are a corrupt oligarchy, but so is the private media in most countries throughout the world.

In the United States, too, the mainstream media is in the pocket of big corporations and you will rarely hear a word critical of neo-liberalism, capitalism, or other features of US society come out of their mouths.

Consider, too, the history of other countries in Latin America.

The press in Chile was solidly against Salvador Allende, and in favor of the right-wing Allessandri ... we saw what happened three years later.

The press in Brazil, today, savages the Landless Workers' Movement, accusing them of being Marxist, terrorist, brigands ... and they have the gall to say this at a time when these peaceful, Catholic, cooperative rural activists are being murdered by the landlords.

The press in Argentina was solidly against Peron, and many of them backed the 1976 anti-Peronist coup by three generals called "the Gentlemen" who proceeded to impale their prisoners on cattle prods, throw them from airplanes, and other "gentlemanly" behavior.

The private media in country after country has this stellar record of behavior.

Now the Venezuelan media wants to pretend that they are something different, heroic partisans of democracy ... their hypocrisy and mendacity is shining bright.

Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com Environmental Technician

• Editor's note: Hector, let's get this straight.  VHeadline.com is in full support of the Venezuelan Constitution and democracy expressed by the Venezuelan people at the ballot box.  They happened to elect President Hugo Chavez Frias as Head of State of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under the full terms and expression of the 1999 Constitution which was itself enacted by elected representatives of the people and ratified by a majority of those selfsame Venezuelan citizens on December 15, 1999.  If/when another President is elected under democratic forms by a majority of the Venezuelan people we will also observe traditional forms of democratic and constitutional expression under the law.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 3:13:07 AM By: Almira Atencio

The message he used to win his first election was to fight corruption

Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 21:39:17 -0400 From: Almira Atencio atencioalmira@hotmail.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Comments

Dear Editor: commenting on a letter from Hector Dauphin-Gloire dated:26-10-2003.  Sure, the President was elected two times by the people of Venezuela: First without a national project ... the message he used to win his first election was the promise to fight corruption left in this country as a tradition that had destroyed democratic institutions.

When he won, he summoned Venezuelans to organize a national referendum, as an essential requirement for his government plan and organization of Venezuela's institutions, so damaged by democratic governors during the past forty years. People were  happy, accepted and believed absolutely in the President's plans.

After the referendum, which took two years in his first mandate, he found it necessary to legitimate his elections, so he organized more elections. Before this time, he did not have a majority in the National Assembly but this second election gave him more deputies than he had had before and he commenced to dominate the legislative power.

Meanwhile he also organized the domination  of the executive power upon the legislative power and decided that there was no President of the National Assembly, due to the referendum, giving to Miquelena, the first commander of his party, to be the authority of a similar creation of a legislative power called "el congresillo" (arbitrary and due to discretional power) whose mission was to control power, prepare  laws for his national plan and to approve them with new deputies after elections where he would legitimate his power with his own organization (new Assembly with absolute control of votes  by deputies of Chavez' political party would vote for the representatives of the Supreme court). All these  lawyers  elected by the National Assembly were to be the judges of the court (all of Chavez -- so he dominated the Supreme Court).

After he had absolutely all the power in his hands he went to elections and, since he had not yet governed, people voted again for him, so he could rule against demagogy and corruption. He won. People wanted him to win. There were no other candidates because he had not governed yet, nobody really new what he was preparing.

When he won the second elections, he had all power in his hands for the country, we would notice how this absolute power given and organized by him in a Machiavellian way would rest justice, respect for human rights and the rule for democratic system: the balance between power. After he had all this power he began to act in a arbitrary way, he never worked or presented an economic plan, the social security plan just approved in 1997 with resources of the Inter American Development Bank was eliminated by a new plan were radicalism and pragmatism were its entitle, as for the medias, there were object of violence, as for the court, justice was manipulated by politics.

So now that we know what he wants for Venezuela, now, that we are suffering totalitarianism, now that many people have died because of his cruelty with the opposition  and now that Venezuela's "technicians" that work in the petroleum industry do not want to let the President ruin our economy, the only thing we had left.

We are suffering radicalism just as you commenced to have signals of communist when Joseph McCarthy fought against violence born from these socialist or left intellectual's new raise in life.

Pray for Venezuela. Please.

Almira Atencio atencioalmira@hotmail.com

abcnews.go.com The Associated Press CARACAS, Venezuela Jan. 29 —

In Another Sign Venezuela Strike May Be Weakening, Private Banks Agree to Normal Hours

President Hugo Chavez appeared to be winning the battle for control of Venezuela's oil industry, overcoming efforts by workers at the state oil company to strangle it with a 58-day-old strike.

In another sign the strike is weakening, private banks agreed Wednesday to restore normal banking hours next week, said Central Bank president Diego Luis Castellanos. Banks and many exchange houses had opened only three hours a day to support the strike.

The decision came after Chavez had threatened to fine banks, suspend their directors and withdraw military deposits from striking institutions.

Even as the government boosted oil production beyond the million-barrel benchmark, the work stoppage has had devastating effects on the country's recession-ridden economy.

Production reached 1 million barrels a day Tuesday one-third of pre-strike levels, according to striking executives at state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. It had slipped as low as 200,000 barrels per day in December.

Output is rising because the government is focusing on newer oil fields, where crude is easier to extract. But the recovery should slow when the government is forced to reactivate old wells that have sat idle for nearly two months, making their crude sticky and difficult to pump.

"They are going for the lowest hanging fruit on the tree, the easiest to grab," said Ed Silliere, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant LLC in New York. "In a few weeks, it is going to be a struggle."

Silliere said he expects difficulties to begin when output reaches 1.2 million to 1.4 million barrels per day.

In an effort to regain control of the oil monopoly, Chavez has sacked more than 5,000 of its 40,000 workers. State oil company executives warn the firings will make it even more difficult to reach full production capacity.

"That's what happens when unprepared personnel are put to work," Juan Fernandez, the leading spokesmen for dissident state oil workers, told a press conference.

Opposition leaders insist the strike will continue. But a public backlash over food, gasoline and medicine shortages has prompted some workers to consider easing the stoppage in certain areas.

Concerns about a public backlash over food, gasoline and medicine shortages has prompted some strike leaders to consider easing the stoppage in certain areas.

Shopping malls, restaurants and schools may reopen next week, at least part-time, said Julio Brazon, president of the Consecomercio business chamber. Some small businesses have reopened, and others never closed.

"The lifting of the strike is not being proposed now," said Carlos Ortega, president of the nation's largest labor union. "What is being proposed are some strategies that correspond to sectors involved in the strike." He did not elaborate.

Venezuelans must wait for hours in miles-long lines outside service stations. To ease the inconvenience, the government will impose limits on daily gas sales, said Luis Vierma, director of hydrocarbons at the Energy and Mines Ministry.

Although Chavez has had some success in reviving oil production, which provides half of Venezuela's government revenue and 70 percent of export earnings, he faces a daunting task in recuperating the country's economy.

Capital flight, stalled investment and strike damage led Santander Central Hispano investment bank to forecast a 40 percent contraction in the first quarter of 2003. Unemployment stands at 17 percent.

A freeze on foreign currency sales to protect the bolivar, which has lost 25 percent of its value this year, was extended Tuesday. The bolivar traded at 2,300 to the dollar Tuesday in secondary markets between private parties, bankers said. It was 1,853 to the dollar before the suspension started last week.

Limits on the amount of foreign currency Venezuelans can buy go into effect next week. The measure has been severely criticized by executives who say it could hurt businesses that depend on U.S. dollars to import goods.

"Chavez many have the initial advantage, but over the long term, he's going to have a much more difficult path," said Steve Johnson, senior policy analyst for Latin America at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.