How I finished my studies in the middle of a crisis (Venezuelan Protests 2017).

As you might know, in my previous post, I introduced you the story of how I finished my studies in the university in 2017. I commented that we were passing through a crisis in my country and we had so many problems to finish our final steps, but we made it after all (not like I wanted, but it could be worst, so I don't complain).

This is the story of  four months of protest in Venezuela because of the economic and political crisis, with more than a hundred of people killed by the Repressive Forces of the Government, more than a thousands of people processed in jail and tortured, violations of the human rights and the massive exodus in our borders. And I was in the middle of that.

Since I was a boy, we are living a political crisis that it gets worse everyday,  a corrupt government that is destroying our economy, and divided the people by using hate. I remember 2014 was a really hard year, I was in half way of finishing the university, and we started to feel the first consecuences of the economic crisis that it was about to come. February 12th of 2014 was the day that it all started, with the firsts big protests, violations of the human rights and the death of many people by the agents of the government. It end in May of 2014 with no results under my perspective.

The corruption, violence, lack of food, medicines, cash and the long lines that the people had to make to reach any of the last three things that I mentioned; all of that reached its limits in 2017.

I remember it was Wednesday, more precisely March 29th of 2017. That day I didn't watch the news, so I went to classes and everybody was talking about that, I wasn't understanding, so a friend asked me "did you watch the news?", I was very confused."No, what is happening?" I said, then she told me that the Supreme Court (working for the government) had dissolved the National Assembly (with opposition majority) illegally. It was a very serious situation for the country.

We were pretty scared, we knew that was the start of the totalitarianism, and the days to come will be very difficult. The next day, the Supreme Court (illegally) transfered the constitutional faculties of the National Assembly to the Government, that action was considered by the opposition, contries and international organizations as a self-coup.

The next weeks we had an intermittent period of classes. Sometimes they suspended whole weeks because of the massive protests and the violence on the streets. We had to organize ourselves to finish our final tests, like going to libraries, or even the home of students, as long as the streets seemed calm.

I had luck, in May 24th I finished all my tests and I just had to wait until the graduation (July), but a lot of people who started the last year of the carreer didn't make it on time, so they were assigned to another date of graduation.

From April to July 31st, we all had a rough time. People were being injured, processed in jail and killed in the protests, and that was affecting us psychologically. I was starting to feel depressed, but a tried to keep myself optimistic, that everything was going to change.

Things got worse day by day. One day I had to spend the afternoon at a friend's house, I was on the streets away from my house, but that day the people started to do barricades as a protest and as defensive strategy against the forces of the Government (we called that "plantón"). I couldn't reach my home, so I had to wait (usually, the barricades are removed at 6:00 pm).

In May, the Government (now a Dictatorship) announced that they were going to an election on July 31st to make a new constitution by the National Constituent Assembly. This was an illegal process from the beginning to end under my opinion as a lawyer, and as a person. Actually, everybody knew this was a crazy move by the government to take all the control, so, the day of the election (July 31st), nobody went out to vote.

Later that day, the National Electoral Council announced that 8 million people went out to vote the constituents. That election was manipulated (even the company that made the electoral system, "Smartmatic" denuonced it), but in spite of that, July 31st was the day that all ended for many reasons.

We were tired and depressed, the opposition made terrible mistakes of strategy in four months of protests (this is my personal opinion), and that made the people hopeless. (most people think that the opposition betrayed the cause).

We got our graduation suspended, so the next day, August 1st, I went to the university to pick up my lawyer's degree, just in case. I didn't go to the act (the graduation would be the next week, but I didn't want to risk, we didn't know, and I had many feels at the moment).

Well, I guess this is the end of the story. In the actual day, we are pretty much worse than the last year, but I hope this will change soon.