** - to explain to you what I mean here I'll give an example: once my previous workplace in the US was conducting an executive search for a "sweep" - senior VP. Large office stood empty for months, and nobody knew who or when will come to occupy it. So, couple months before they hired him, I had assumed a face of a prophet from bad movies, and stared in the future, telling my co-workers what to put on the nameplate on that office door: " I see it... I see it... GREEDY A**HOLE!". Well, couple months later they finally hired him - and boy, was I proved right! They had to squeeze him out in less than a year. And may this be a lesson: it is/was immaterial WHO he was, but very material WHAT he was.
"I do not need to know "real conditions" - I need to know the people making these conditions, and the only thing I need to know about them is not WHO they are, but WHAT they are.** I keep periodic communication with my contacts there - and what I hear from them merely confirms what I have already known."
1.) You are "them" but you don't recognize this fact. Explains your cynicism.
2.) Your contacts are more than likely former or current friends and acquaintances - as such they probably have much in common with you and see things as you do. Quite natural, but doesn't provide much variety in viewpoints to properly ascertain the situation over there.
3.) Nice analysis of the new "VP" but hardly novel. The type of person they hired is the norm, not the exception.
Allow me to explain my position on this - and I'll apologize in advance for insulting you.
You fled your homeland. It's quite understandable and reasonable that you did. Now that the country you fled has the opportunity of turning itself into a better place you find yourself conflicted. Perhaps deep down you do want to see them do well, BUT, if they do, then your decision to flee might not seem to have been a wise one in the long run, or you may have missed out on an opportunity to lead - to make a difference. Instead, it's easier to say that place is doomed and never will change. In that manner of thinking you will then always be "justified' for leaving your country of birth and won't feel as you haven't contributed or missed an opportunity.