"In the early days of his presidency, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez looked almost like a healer: 'Let's ask for God's help to accept our differences and come together in dialogue', he implored his compatriots in a famous speech he gave in 2002. Instead, what Venezuelans got was an avenger. The government is seizing privately owned companies and farms. Labor unions have been crushed. Political opponents are routinely harassed or else prosecuted by Chavista-controlled courts. And now, after a decade of the so-called Bolivarian revolution, tens of thousands of disillusioned Venezuelan professionals have had enough," says a lengthy article in Newsweek, published some days ago, which claims that artists, lawyers, physicians, managers, and engineers are leaving the country in droves.

An estimated 9,000 Venezuelan scientists are currently living in the US —compared to 6,000 employed in Venezuela, says the article, adding that "this exodus is splitting families and interrupting careers, but also sabotaging the country's future."

"Just as nations across the developing world are managing to lure their scattered expatriates back home to fuel recovering economies and join vibrant democracies, the outrush of Venezuelan brainpower is gutting universities and think tanks, crippling industries, and hastening the economic disarray that threatens to destroy one of the richest countries in the hemisphere," the author of the article says. "Forget minerals, oil, and natural gas; the biggest export of the Bolivarian revolution is talent."