When I find myself down with the situation of the MUD, the supposed dialogue, and the censorship of international NGOs in Venezuela, fed up with the dictatorial circus we endure, I like to escape to a vividly red place by its origins, but truly magical because it’s a fantastical world where there’s no shortage, only luxury, joy, and happiness. Unfortunately, my last visit was unusual. It was a week of mourning in this enchanted world. Even Víctor Vargas Irasquin was overwhelmed with grief over the passing of a young man who gave so much to life. That’s how we all felt in Tucacas not long ago, where we held a minute of silence for Javi.
A minute of silence for a fallen comrade (us).
Javi wasn’t one of the students shot by the SEBIN. Javi wasn’t violated with a rifle, like Juan Manuel Carrasco. He wasn’t at the protests in Prados del Este, Los Ruices, or even in Petare. He didn’t get emotional when Leopoldo and Lilian said goodbye in front of all of us, when Leo surrendered (it’s worth noting that Leo has been imprisoned for over 100 days). Very few knew that Javi was a member of an elite. Not even Henry Ramos Allup from D’Agostino knows who Javier Novillo Astrada was. And even less did he share our suffering in Tucacas.
Javi never cared that Víctor Vargas is the most dangerous mafioso in Venezuela. He didn’t care that Eugenio Mendoza Rodriguez and his family were having a great time in this field of mischief-makers and crooks. What Javi loved was polo. Javi was Argentine and passed away in his country from brain cancer. This is truly sad. However, it shows the degeneration of our country when a group of Venezuelans mourns for an Argentine while Venezuela is living out a slow-motion civil war, where the best of its emerging youth are detained, tortured, or shot dead. And these gentlemen show no consideration whatsoever.
Here, it doesn’t matter if you’re part of the Sebucán, Mondragón, or Los Samanes teams. What matters is that you come from the upper class, have access to a private jet, and dare not speak of the ill-gotten gains of others. Unless you’re one of the players imported from the motherland or from the Pampas of Argentina, like Juan Agustin Garcia Grossi, Martin Espain, Juan Jose Brane, or Jose Villamil. Or even Javi’s cousins, who in person are a true delight. Víctor has amassed so much money that he pays a fortune to keep people from the polo world to play with him, like a rich kid who has no real friends. Friends on the payroll.
Meanwhile, the regime continues to violate the rights of everyone. Here in Tucacas, there are oligarchs and boligarcas playing polo as if nothing’s wrong. They feel no shame in their ostentation and luxury, nor in the blatant robbery; they rub it in our faces. What emptiness these little men must feel to require a half-ton of horse between their legs. Where is Diosdado Cabello with his resentful speech against the upper class? Diosdado is analyzing the bank accounts of his frontmen in the BOD and his many “banks” abroad. Nobody criticizes these boligarcas; they can behave like the oligarchs of the past, committing the same sins and even worse, but it doesn’t count because they’re all “rojo rojitos” (the “Chavista revolution,” by the way, didn’t reach Tucacas: the only black folks are cleaning stables and serving).
But when I go to Tucacas, I never get bored, because it truly feels like escaping the Chavista Venezuela and entering the Disney World of Mister Vargas. The puppet of Vargas, licensed Ignacio Arcaya Smith, has come through here with his big cigars and his appetite for good food. And if it weren’t for Magally Capriles and Maira, I would die of boredom (it’s hard to maintain a thirst for justice when they keep filling your mouth with so much Veuve Clicquot).
This polo field shouldn’t be confused with La Lechuza Caracas Polo Field, which is located in Wellington, Florida. The field I’m talking about, also part of the Venezuelan nation, sorry, of Victor Vargas, is in Tucacas, Venezuela, not in Wellington, U.S.-zuela.
Federico Rosales, one of the faces I see often at the “club,” used to sit at the Pingüino and talk nonsense about how he was going to be a business success. He already is by virtue of his tricks (which you will read more about on this site). Federico is hanging on tight. He and his buddies spend the weekends playing the role of deserting oligarchs with their boligarca counterparts, while our country crumbles, and Federico’s contemporaries protest for our freedom. Even the cousin of Leopoldo Lopez Mendoza Rodriguez plays polo while Leo is imprisoned.
When I was in university, the only polo I knew was water polo. That sport united us for social well-being and health. The polo of these boligarcas is an excuse for excess, exploitation, and a kind of false exclusivity. No matter what they wear, even if they dress in Hermes’ footwear, they remain the same people who in 15 years helped loot a nation whose society grows more impatient every day. When the pressure cooker explodes, I hope they’re far away, because I fear it will be a very ugly scene, which I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, not even these leeches.