Caracas Chronicles

Three months ahead of his death, Fidel Castro knew Hugo Chávez was a terminal case. He told Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa as much. It beggars belief that this fact was not ascertained ahead of last year’s October 7th election.

Yet throughout that time, the Venezuelan people were carefully, systematically lied to about the state of the president’s health. The government carefully kept up the absurd charade that Chávez was on the mend right up until the very end.

This much all thinking people can agree on: if they will lie about this, they will lie about anything. And yet the confounding fact remains: the lie is out there, the proof that it was a lie is out there. Yet through it all, millions of Venezuelans hang on to their determination not to see what is right under their noses.

Once an entire population has embraced its own deception to this delirious extent, where is the room for redemption? I keep wanting to find it. But I can’t.