BANKS ON STRIKE
Sunday 8, December 2002, later that evening

[Again I needed to add some brackets to the original post for clarity]

Well, what should be interesting for US folks, and unthinkable!

The banking system has agreed to join the strike as of tomorrow. This includes the foreign banks which were the ones holding against the stoppage. Since 2 of the 4 major banks are in the hands of Spanish banks you can imagine the influence of foreign banks in Venezuela. My bank is a medium sized bank owned by a Canadian bank, Scotia, just to show you how many banks are into the hands of foreign banks. [Actually it was more a matter of the employees union, and as it turned out later, it was meant for a day as a protest. Nevertheless later in the week banks went on a reduced schedule opening to the public only from 9 to 12 AM]

Tonight there are strong and serious rumors that Gaviria is negotiating the transition government. I suppose that Chavez has not been able to convince the army to go along with his crazy adventure. But it is too early to celebrate. There is a sense of strong foreboding tonight. One journalist has been brutally beaten a couple of hours ago and the army has made some strange moves such as commandeering gas trucks to force gas deliveries. The trucks they took are trucks taken out of service 3 years ago so I leave you to speculate as to the safety of said trucks.....
[Yet nothing came of it. Whether Gaviria indeed negotiated will probably be never known. And what happened behind closed doors was settled among the military as usual. But I left this post since it does reflect the frantic mood of the country that evening]