Noose tightens-Stike in 'final stretch'-Oil workers, traffic controllers, customs agents, banks..

Venezuela strike in 'final stretch' - Thousands more workers join union's effort to oust Chavez

CARACAS, Venezuela -- The noose tightened on Venezuela's economy Monday as an eight-day general strike aimed at ousting President Hugo Chavez spread to banks, air travel and the capital city's subway system.

Oil workers, air traffic controllers and customs agents joined the strikers. The banks announced that they were joining the strike and restricting services to three hours a day.

"We are in the final stretch," union boss Carlos Ortega, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition, announced at a news conference, in which the strike was extended indefinitely. "Mr. Chavez understands that no one or nothing will stop the people."

Chavez sympathizers seized a pro-opposition television station in the city of Maracay, about 60 miles west of Caracas Monday afternoon. About 11 p.m., other demonstrators besieged four of the principal opposition stations in Caracas.

Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States who is in Caracas to broker talks between the two sides, went on television to denounce the actions and called on the Chavez government to call off the demonstators.

Enraged Chavez supporters have blamed the privately owned media of inciting the uprising against the government and journalists have been the targets of violence in the past year.

Today marks a year since the campaign to drive Chavez from power began with the first of four general strikes. The opposition -- an often squabbling salad of business groups, unions, political parties and civic organizations -- demands that Chavez either resign immediately or call a vote on his rule for early next year.

Chavez, who has won two presidential elections since 1998 and whose term ends in 2006, insists that he will not call a binding referendum on his rule until next August, the earliest date permitted by the constitution. Various polls show Chavez's support hovering around 30 percent of Venezuela's 23 million people, 80 percent of whom are considered poor.

The pressure to remove the president got personal when Chavez's estranged wife, Marisabel, went on opposition-controlled television to ask her husband to call it quits.

"In the name of your daughter, in the name of your family, in the name of the country, listen to the people," Mrs. Chavez, who is divorcing the president, said with the couple's daughter at her side.

The general strike, which began Dec. 2, intensified in short order when walkouts by sailors, refinery workers and managers began to cripple PDVSA, the government-owned conglomerate that manages the production and processing of the country's oil.

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil producer, typically produces about 3 million barrels of crude daily and accounts for 13 percent of the United States' petroleum imports. But dissident managers say production has been slashed to about 1 million barrels a day by the strike.

Petroleum accounts for half the government's revenue, 80 percent of Venezuela's exports and a quarter of its economy.

Ali Rodriguez, the pro-Chavez president of the oil company, told reporters Monday night that the government has taken steps to restore gasoline supplies.

"In general, we have made the maximum effort to re-establish operations," Rodriguez said upon leaving the presidential palace of Miraflores.

"What threatens us is a true national disaster," he said, acknowledging that the strike had closed ports, halted oil exports and threatened the country's internal fuel supply.

He warned that unless the strike ended, the oil company would stop paying taxes, private contractors and royalty payments by Dec. 31.

Despite the building pressure and the looming threat of economic gridlock, Chavez insisted that he's sticking to his guns.

"I swear by God that they won't drive me from the presidency," Chavez said on his regular Sunday television program.

In normal times, Venezuela would be preparing to shut down anyway for the three weeks of festivities that usually mark the Christmas holidays across Latin America. Obviously, the deepening crisis promises to dampen the fun this year.

"We're not like this," Maria Eugenia Chasin, a well-dressed mother of two, said as she waited in a long line of people taking money out of a automatic teller machine in downtown Caracas. "We're party people. We like our fun, our good times, our life."

"Both sides," Chasin said, "have become radicalized. We're left just watching and suffering. This Christmas will be gray. It will be sad."

December 16, 2001 Venezuela's Chavez Threatens to Nationalize Banks [Full text] CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to nationalize banks that fail to observe legislation requiring them to lend at least 15 percent of their loan portfolio to small farmers. ``We can nationalize any bank that does not observe the law,'' Chavez said in a speech in Venezuela's National Assembly. ``Not only can we nationalize any bank, any banker that does not abide by the law could go to jail.''

Last month, Chavez' government used ``fast-track'' legislative powers to decree 49 laws affecting industries from oil to agriculture. Under the new legislation, banks must lend at least 15 percent, rather than the previous 8 percent, of their portfolios to poor farmers in need of credit.

Another contentious law opens the way for the expropriation of ``idle'' farmlands and the distribution of small plots to farmers.

Chavez made the statements during a ceremony to commemorate the second anniversary of the approval of the new constitution.

To protest the laws, Fedecameras, the country's leading association of businesses, brought Venezuela to a virtual halt with a one-day nationwide strike earlier this week. It is also challenging the laws in Venezuela's highest court and pushing for amendments in the legislature. Business groups fear the Land Law violates the right to private property and will scare off investors. Some bankers have said they would rather pay a fine for disregarding the new laws than provide more loans.

It was not immediately clear how much banks could be fined for ignoring the laws. Chavez, a leftist former paratrooper, claims the package of laws will consolidate his so-called ``revolution'' aimed at bringing social justice to Venezuela's poor majority. [End]

Mon Dec 9, 2:45 PM ET A porter passes under a flight board which display all local fights canceled at Simon Bolivar airport in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Dec. 9, 2002. Pressure increased on President Hugo Chavez Monday to call elections as some customs and tax agents joined an opposition strike that disrupted domestic flights, sparked long lines at gas stations and choked Venezuela's biggest source of income, oil. (AP Photo/Marcelo Hernande)

Hugo Chavez - Venezuela

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***It is not just Argentina, for all of South America is in crisis. Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia are as badly off or worse. Brazil could follow Argentina into bankruptcy and default on its $260 billion foreign debt, rattling the entire global economy. Farther to the north, Colombia is torn by civil war, and Venezuela is paralyzed by a political crisis that could also disintegrate into war. Almost everywhere, the "Washington Consensus" free-market policies of the 1990's are regarded as failed and discredited, partly because we did not fight corruption as aggressively as we should have, and in countries as diverse as Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador, recent elections have gone to leftists or populists who tend to make Americans deeply nervous.***

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