MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine savers to ask visiting Defence Minister to intercede with

Argentine bank customers whose savings are being withheld due to the restrictions on bank accounts imposed by former President Fernando De la Rua last December are to try to deliver a letter to British Secretary of State for Defence Geoffrey Hoon during his two day visit to Buenos Aires later this week.

The savers said they will ask Hoon to urgently bring up the matter with the British government and to intercede before the head offices of the two main British banks operating in Argentina - Lloyds Bank and HSBC - whose local branches are among those withholding savings.

According to a spokeswoman for the savers who three times a week noisily demonstrate in the downtown banking area of Buenos Aires the protesters will present a letter to Hoon calling on the British government to bring up this matter with the head offices of the "thieving local subsidiaries of the two British banks operating in Argentina" who are "illegally withholding the savings of their Argentine and British customers".

"We placed our trust in Lloyds Bank and HSBC precisely because they were British banks and now we find that they are just as untrustworthy as the Argentine state owned banks" another elderly protestor explained to MercoPress.

"Do Lloyds Bank and HSBC customers in the UK know that the local branches of the banks they have entrusted their savings to are robbing their customers in this country?" asked another.

"Even after the Malvinas war we were still willing to put our trust in British banks, but now we see that HSBC and Lloyds in Argentina are no better than the corrupt state owned banks of this country."

Both HSBC and Lloyds - as all the mainly foreign owned banks - "are withholding the savings of their customers shielding behind unconstitutional Central Bank resolutions to avoid returning savings taken out in dollars and later converted into devaluated pesos" she adds.

"Tell Hoon to come and see how British banks operate in Argentina, with armed guards shooting on customers protesting outside branches which have largely been fortified with protective metal sheeting and with their managers and senior staff living cowering in fear of being recognised by their irate customers".

While it was not known whether Hoon would be meeting the protesters some local banking analysts indicated that the continued banking restrictions by foreign owned banks are "severely souring the relationship between those countries and Argentina."

This view was bluntly explained by a 70 year old grandmo