A vote stained with blood

The story also starts from a long-distance bus station.

That day I was about to take a bus from Costa Rica to Panama. After a long journey, it was already very late when I arrived at the station. As soon as I entered the door, I started to look for WI-FI in a hurry. After all, there was no money in the mobile phone card, and I wanted to reassure my family that they were safe. Just when I was looking for a long time and couldn't find anything, a voice suddenly came from beside me: "Do you speak Spanish?" I turned around and saw a handsome young man blinking his big clear eyes and looking at me with a smile. I said, I don’t know much, what’s wrong? After a pause, he continued to ask: "Do you know what the WI-FI password here is?" He said, you look like a tourist, then come with me!

In the next few minutes, he first helped me connect to WI-FI, then helped me get my ticket, and then found an English-speaking staff member who asked me to ask him anything. His enthusiasm and sincerity were like the spring breeze that blew away my fatigue from the day. After finishing the work, I started chatting with him in my broken Spanish. He asked, "Where are you from"? I said, China, and then asked him like a conditioned reflex, what about you? As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he cursed himself, "Nonsense, of course he is a Costa Rican." Unexpectedly, the handsome guy actually replied: "I am a Venezuelan."

This was the first time in my life that I met a Venezuelan. Oh no, I should have seen many more. After all, I have also heard that refugees from Venezuela are now spread throughout Latin America, but the same appearance and language make them disappear effortlessly in the vast sea of ​​people. I was at a loss for words, so I asked him: "Is everything okay over there (of course I asked nonsense again)"? He smiled and said, no, there is no future there.

After chatting for a while, I found out that the handsome guy was twenty years old and worked at this bus station. He came to Costa Rica as a refugee two years ago. According to him, many people there are "unable to live" and most young people "are leaving." I asked him if things in Venezuela are expensive? He said that it is similar to Costa Rica, but the average person in them can only earn less than 150 US dollars a month (Costa Rica is about 700-800 US dollars, with complete social welfare, there are still many people complaining about low wages). If the conversation just now made me feel the difficulty of life in Venezuela, then what happened next was the real shock to my soul:

Me: "I haven't eaten yet and I'm very hungry. Is there a convenience store nearby?"

He said, "Yes, but you'd better use UBER to order food. The streets are very dangerous now."

Me: "Why"?

He said: "There are many refugees near the station now, and they have no money. They are all from Nicaragua, Honduras...", then he paused and said sadly, "There are also many from Venezuela."

I noticed that he was in a bad mood and quickly changed the subject: "So have you had dinner?"

He: "No, I haven't eaten since morning until now. I go home a few hours later to eat a little. I only eat one or two meals a day because I have to send money to my family in Venezuela."

I (feeling very sad at the time): "Let me treat you. What do you want to eat?"

He said, "Thank you very much. Just do the same as you."

I ordered KFC and asked UBER to deliver it. When I handed him a five-dollar set meal (a small portion in my opinion), he was as happy as a child, his eyes lit up, and he kept thanking me. Then he took me to a living room with a table nearby, turned on the fan for me and turned around to leave. I said to him slightly surprised: Sit down and eat. He looked at me with his big, beautiful eyes, smiled awkwardly, and replied, "I'll eat it when I get home. This will be my dinner and breakfast. Thank you."

This is the first time in my life that I have truly seen what "not having enough to eat" means. In fact, I have seen many poor people in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and many of them seem to be more difficult than he is. However, such a "close-up" experience is unprecedented for me.

I never mentioned this matter to others, mainly because I fell ill soon after arriving in Panama. Before I recovered from the illness, I encountered a lot of troubles. But it undoubtedly left such an impression on Venezuela in my mind, with only four words: the people are in dire straits.

After I returned to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, I met a Chinese supermarket owner who moved here with his family from Venezuela in 2018. He told me that at that time, the government forcibly introduced laws to restrict prices, resulting in their selling prices not being able to keep up with the purchase price. This was a real loss of money and they had to pay compensation. Chinese people fled one after another. According to him, many who did not run fast enough were either extorted of all their property by the police using various methods, or were robbed and killed by hungry local people. I asked him if it was safe to go to Venezuela now? He hurriedly said that it was very dangerous. Don’t go there without a local as a guide, especially for someone like me who doesn’t speak Spanish well.

There are many countries like Venezuela in the world, where the people's livelihood is in decline and the government is in chaos. Although the people I met gave me a lot of understanding of the current situation in the country, I was caught up in various things at the time and did not choose to continue paying attention until the Venezuelan people recently launched large-scale demonstrations against the president and the ruling party. After extensive collection of information and documents, I can only say something with extreme sadness and indignation that I don't want to say but have to say: my own country is acting as an accomplice of the tyrant and executioner.

First, what are Venezuela’s president and ruling party like? Not to mention corruption, suppression of dissidents, and cult of personality, large-scale nationalized oil companies and foreign capital compete with the people for profit, and severe crackdowns on private companies are all clearly avoidable mistakes. Venezuela is rich in natural resources, with huge reserves of minerals and oil. It has unique advantages in developing industry and high technology. No matter how bad it is, it should be able to become a stable middle-income country like Malaysia, but it is helpless that man-made disasters are raging.

And what do we do in the face of the Venezuelan people’s desire for change? Including but not limited to: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs congratulated Maduro on his election, the media called this large-scale demonstration a "riot", and supported the government in "defending normal order", etc. Of course, what is even more terrifying is the military assistance given to the authorities. According to the Spanish military media Infodefencia, during this conflict, the Venezuelan National Guard (Guardia Nacional de Venezuela) used a large number of Chinese-made riot weapons, such as "Rhino" armored vehicles, "Beluga" water spray trucks, etc. I don't know where these nicknames come from, but judging from the comparison of pictures, they correspond to the VN-4 and WTC-1 produced by Norinco respectively. This is consistent with the South China Morning Post's report on China's military aid to Venezuela. At the same time, many Latin American media (such as Dialogo Americas) have also claimed that after the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, China has gradually replaced Russia as the largest supplier of Venezuelan military and police (this is also consistent with common sense, after all, Russia now has too much to take care of itself), aid provided the Venezuelan authorities with a large amount of anti-riot weapons and equipment.

At the same time, China is now Venezuela’s largest oil exporter. But have the revenues from oil brought any benefits to the Venezuelan people? Of course not. Let’s not talk about whether Venezuela’s so-called “nationalized oil companies” are “state-owned” or “government-owned.” We can probably know these oil revenues from the continuous flow of refugees in the country and the lack of growth in public expenditures. Probably it all goes into the pockets of the government. In other words, not only in terms of weapons and equipment, but also in terms of money, China has given the Venezuelan authorities the ability to suppress popular resistance.

As for why? Obviously, China, or rather the Chinese government, needs international support. Maybe Venezuela can't do anything practical, but whenever international organizations make any resolutions, as long as Venezuela can vote in favor of China, then the Chinese government can tell the people that "virtue cannot stand alone without neighbors." Especially when the domestic economy is in a slump and the diplomatic environment is in trouble, it is even more necessary to use this kind of "support" to bring even a little confidence to the people, which is the so-called "big internal propaganda." This is why even when the economy just started to recover not long after the epidemic ended, the government still held an extremely luxurious "Central Asia Summit" in Xi'an and carried out large-scale coverage, in order to create a sense of "the world is at home" and "all nations are coming". They try to continue to indulge the people in the sense of superiority of the "Chinese Kingdom".

By the way, another disturbing point is that even the "country/region travel advice" that people should refer to for their own safety before going abroad is inevitably mixed with political factors. For example, Venezuela, which is now in dire straits and where crime is rampant, has been What level of danger is it classified as? Medium risk. You read that right, it is on the same level as the United States and Canada, and even on the same level as Fukushima in Japan. In other words, the Chinese authorities not only don’t care about the lives of the Venezuelan people, but also don’t care about the lives of local Chinese and Chinese citizens (I said nonsense again). What does it care about? I think everyone knows it too.

I especially want to express my current feelings with what a German soldier said to a Jew during World War II: "I am ashamed of what my country is doing now." Many Chinese people may feel uncomfortable hearing what I said, but I must say that if you are a Chinese, you should resist this kind of behavior. Why? Quite simply, we cannot allow this country to lose its conscience. If it were more than 2,000 years ago, Mencius would have said that such behavior is "leading the beast to eat man." And our country's actions are exactly helping a group of crazy beasts to knock out the bones of the Venezuelan people and suck out the marrow. If we can turn a blind eye to this kind of behavior, what is the difference between us and the beasts in Mencius' eyes? For me personally, if I did not boycott China’s military aid to Venezuela, I would never be able to look directly into the clear eyes of that station boy, because perhaps it was because of my silence that he and his family are still suffering. Hungry!

As a Chinese, I would rather not have any friends than have a single vote from Venezuela. Because this vote is stained with the blood of the Venezuelan people.