Dear Prof. Hernandes

I am very surprised that a professor at a Venezuelan University in search of information about your own country, but I give you my information and impressions, even as a way of confirming my data.

I lived 4 years on the border between Brazil and Venezuela (Boa Vista) and I have friends there. I can say from friends that it is a Venezuelan situation and under several it is very critical.

Among the aspects that stand out most are:

1. A deep division of the country, between the Bolivarians and liberals, is crumbling. There are groups of Non-Madurist Bolivarians, Ideological Bolivarians, Utilitarian Bolivarians, etc. On the other hand, liberals have no clear leadership. Capriles, Leopoldo Lopes and Antonio Ledezma are only 3 leaders among many others. And the dialogue between them is very small. Thus we can not speak of polarization, but political breakdown.

2. The army, which is a great stabilizing force of the country, is beginning to divide itself, even with all as gifts granted. The armed power, however, is not limited to the armed forces. A "Bolivarian National Guard" was created, a parallel army that controls all the roads of the country (Alcabalas) and all the main points of agglomeration of people and respond directly to Maduro. Also created were "collectives", representative groups of society and that are armed by the government. So we have a parallel armed force with 500,000 men. The confusion only grows because ultra-right paramilitary groups appear in the country financed by businessmen abroad.

3. Monetarily, the country is in complete chaos. In effect, the government lost control of the state. The BsF (national currency) depreciated 30% in 5 days in the parallel market. In fact, the exchange is impossible to know. The differences can go from 100% between different stores in the same city. While in the official exchange 01 dollars buy BsF 6.50, on 08/08/2017, 1 US dollar bought BsF 1300.00. It is important to note that there are four official changes: Sicad, with a price of 12,80 BsF per dollar, Simadi), BsF 200.00 per dollar and Sicad II at BsB 52.00 per dollar, each for one Specific type of import.

4. Since the country has no foreign exchange and nothing produces, the shortage is enormous. The industry in the country was nationalized and then sold to senior members of Bolivarianism or to high-ranking military personnel. The state's largest beer factory was closed for lack of water treatment products. It is true that antibiotics and veterinary anesthetics are used in humans, and that there is a black market for toilet paper. I know a woman arrested and sentenced to 3 years in prison for selling 2 deodorants and 3 packs of tampons.

5. The crazy exchange rate and the lack of products gave rise to a portion of the population that learned to live in and from chaos. They obtain authorizations to import products at the official exchange rate and have sales channels in parallel. Also the civil servants and the military that obtain remunerations that guarantee the subsistence to them. Many Venezuelans go to Brazil on weekends to eat a steak, since there beef is rare.

Dear Prof. Reyes Reyes: It is only fair that you are surprised, perhaps I should have written the question in such a way that the readers understood that the reason for it is to gather information from what they perceive in the media (in general).

I am very grateful for your response. You can see very clearly what you perceive as true.

Again, thank you, thank you very much.

Dear Prof.

It would be possible to give us as his impressions of the moment that Venezuela is going through and how my observations are misrepresented in relation to their perception of the facts.

Dear Teacher. I have by no means tried to say that yourr perceptions are not correct. As you well said, you know from your own experience what you described.

The question asked is intended to know its impact in an environment where knowledge, academia, experience have life.

For example, your commentary is not superfluous, it has a foundation born of your knowledge.

In order not to bias the answers that are given, I can not express an opinion on this one.

Again, I want to thank you for your interest in the question.

Thank you thank you very much.