This is my entry to 
Think Bad and you'll Hit the Mark
Since December 1999, when chávez defied nature and suggested that despite the heavy rain the referendum would still take place (quoting Simón Bolivar, he said “if nature gets in our way, we’ll fight it and make it obey”), we knew we were on for long run with a crazy driver down a precipice, no brakes.
Nature responded with a flood that killed over 30,000 people in the State of Vargas. Official figures say no more than 10, 000. When the United States immediately sent a ship full of provisions and humanitarian aid, chávez proudly decline the offer, saying he had everything under control. 20 years later the whole area is still in ruins. That’s how you learn to always, always be suspect of anything the government says.
In April 2002 a coup deposed chávez and the new interim government said they had everything under control and a new Venezuela, with new institutions, would start right then. Two days later chávez was back, with a vengeance. That’s how you learn that no matter what side of the political spectrum the politicians are, you always, always think bad of them. They are at least suspects (most likely guilty) until proven otherwise.
That’s why the most optimistic the government reports became, the more people left the country. Had covid-19 not happened, by now more than 17 million Venezuelans would have left the country. Whenever they said we were number 1 in oil or gas reserves; we were number 1 in this or that, we knew there was something fishy going on. It did not take too long for us to become number 1 in poverty, way behind cuba and Haiti.
That is why we always thing bad if we want to be on the right side of things. Everything is suspect if it comes from the mouth of a politician. After 20 years of lies and piles of evidence to prove they always lie, it is beyond me why there are still people around the world believing their road tales.
So, next time you see or read reports from the maduro regime about how successfully they’ve handled covid-19 or how the guerilla allies from Colombia (FARC-ELN) have nothing to do with violence in our border, how china and russia have nothing to do with the destruction of our Indian land to get our gold and other precious minerals, or how cuba is going to save us with their vaccine, think twice.
As we say in Spanish, aquí hay gato encerrado.
