Venezuela: The nationalisation of Banco de Venezuela

In a television programme broadcasted to the whole of the country on July 31st, President Chávez announced the nationalisation of Banco de Venezuela, the Venezuelan bank owned by the Spanish banking multinational Grupo Santander. 'We are going to nationalize Banco de Venezuela. I make an appeal to Grupo Santander to come here so that we can start to negotiate'. He added: 'Months ago I received the information through intelligence sources that Banco de Venezuela, which had been privatized for years, was being sold by its Spanish owners; that an agreement had been signed between Grupo Santander and a Venezuelan private banker, then the Venezuelan banker needed the permission of the government to buy a bank, this is not a small operation (...) and then I sent a message to the Spanish and the Venezuelan banker, to tell them that the government wanted to buy the bank, we want to recover it. Then the owners said ‘no, we don't want to sell it'. So now I say ‘no, I will buy it, how much is it? We are going to pay for it, and we are going to nationalize Banco de Venezuela'.' The President continued: 'From this moment the media campaign on the part of the Spanish and international media is going to start. They are going to say that Chávez is an autocrat, that Chávez is a tyrant, I don't care, we are going to nationalize the bank regardless'. 'Ladran, luego cabalgamos' (the dogs bark, therefore the caravan is moving), he said, quoting from el Quijote.