The writing days ago, unfortunately, is confirmed. You do not ever want to talk of death, but this is determined to be friends. Now it was Ted Cordova Claure, journalist of the first order, legendary in Bolivia and Latin America. Not that Teddy would not have lived his life well lived, but it is pain that is gone, but it really was when he wanted.
"He died in his chair, asleep," she tells me her daughter Pia in Havelock, North Carolina, accompanied by his wife Mary Boylan. He chose to die for the Journalists' Day, Tuesday May 10, but had been announcing since five years ago he left and he prematurely circulated the news of his own death when he was 70 years old.
Paste to a wheelchair since 1996, settled permanently in the United States, where he wrote the notes of his "Global Column" sending to friends and that were published on pages and newsletters on the net . They mentioned his ill health and death vision on the horizon: " So I say this because I feel that soon I will," wrote in December 2005:
"However, as a writer and journalist I've been all my life, it is interesting to be lucid in the final process, despite the pain. Curiously, one ends up getting used to pain. Becomes a familiar routine because, well, you know that after the spasm of pain, in my case in my left arm and leg, is a relief, a relaxation enhancer, a drug that invites further forward lucidly. And writing is a way to ignore and endure the ills that afflict me. And so today, I said cartesian in the last seven years who want to read me or hear me: I write. Then, I am. "
Teddy supported me in my early days as a journalist. To remember this stage I do a back flip and I go back to 1970, shortly after the coup that led to the presidency of Bolivia to the progressive military Juan Jose Torres, with critical support from social movements were clustered in the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) . Workers initially supported Torres, who had just cast the ephemeral power triumvirate of right-wing coup overthrew another progressive, Alfredo Ovando.
Journalists will also provide support to the government of Torres, who created El Nacional, under the direction of Ted Cordova, who also ran the canal state television. The newspaper was drafted in the Plaza Murillo in front of the Chancellery, and shared printing with Jornada and Vanguard, where he wrote weekly MIR René Zavaleta.
I remember the first conversation I had with Ted, he did not know until then, when I heard about the upcoming appearance of El Nacional. I introduced myself to ask for work, and I did raise demands: "I want to make the cultural site, but have provided a full page every day, without publicity." Teddy laughed in my face, but I got the job, and gave me his novel "Appointment in Earth courage" (published by the extraordinary Camarlighi Pepe), with a dedication that I do not remember now but one sentence caught a lesson in ethics to a young journalist.
The months that I served in El Nacional, until shortly before the coup of Banzer in August 1971 were the most rewarding in my early work as a journalist. On my site cultural and weekend supplement published every day interviews with artists and writers, and reviews of exhibitions, films and books. They shared the job with more experienced colleagues. Managing Editor was Canabrava Paulo Filho, a Brazilian exiled by the dictatorship, and were on the ground Chichi Solíz, Victor Hugo Carvajal, Coco Manto, and Uruguayan Alvaro Barros-Lémez, also in exile.
A couple of times, following my articles were published incomplete (I attributed it to political censorship), I faced Teddy and "threatened" with my "resignation" of the newspaper (as if That would have been able to import anyone at all). Ted smiled at me funny and asked me not to take it to heart, because they were part of the job as a journalist.
When the blow came from Colonel Banzer, 21 August 1971, Ted Cordova was "stitched" with machine gun fire by the paramilitary called "Fly" Monroy, but survived and continued his combative journalism from exile in Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires and then Caracas. Martin tells me, one of the sons of Teddy: "My father beat him seven shots, I keep some of the bullets that you removed in Chile. The same Mosca helped save once recognized him, and if I remember correctly said, 'uuy brother, that you get for being a communist'. "
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| Alfonso Gumucio, Loyola Guzman, Pierre Kalfon and Ted Córdova (1995) |
went back from exile at the time, I in 1978 during the mass hunger strike that precipitated the fall of the dictator Banzer. Teddy returned to Bolivia in early 1990 to lead Ultima Hora newspaper and new projects. Ovejuyo lived in and we were little.
When my friend came to visit Pierre Kalfon, French writer and journalist who was preparing a monumental biography of Che, I organized my home on April 11, 1995 a meeting with some friends who had had more or less directly, with Che's Bolivian stage. There were Ted Cordova Claure, Loyola Guzman, Carlos Soria Galvarro, Marcelo Quezada, Amalia Barron and Freddy Alborta.
When my friend came to visit Pierre Kalfon, French writer and journalist who was preparing a monumental biography of Che, I organized my home on April 11, 1995 a meeting with some friends who had had more or less directly, with Che's Bolivian stage. There were Ted Cordova Claure, Loyola Guzman, Carlos Soria Galvarro, Marcelo Quezada, Amalia Barron and Freddy Alborta.
's been 75 years since Ted Córdova was born on April 24, 1936 in the mining sector Catavi, in northern Potosí. He lived an intense life and had a career in journalism in Latin America that many would envy. He was a columnist for week (Colombia) of Today (Ecuador), magazines Authentic (Venezuela) and Cambio 16 (Spain), and correspondent of many media. He published several books: "Appointment in Earth Courage", "On the Edge of Revolution", "Farewell to the sybaritic", "Spain, the Uncover" "New World Disorder," among others.
Writing became a complex task for Teddy, because he did it with one hand in tight paragraphs with no spaces, all capitals as in the days of the telex. I read and sometimes commented on my notes, and I theirs. Their messages came to me as I transcribe this so:
HOLAOTRA LaOtra VEZ.ABRI DIRECCIONDETUBLOG AND ARTICLE ON ORTEGA LEIEL. AHORANTIENDOMAS. CIERTASRESERVAS TAMBIENPERCIBO MILLION ON ALINEFABLEEVOO.PERO OTROSNUEVE DUDA.DISCULPA ARE ALSO THE SAME inthe MAJDERIA BUT WAS SOLOASUNTODE BROWSEARCONMASCALMA TUBLOGSPOT.AHORA TUOPINION ASK ME ABOUT THE FILM "Apocalypto", DE MELGIBSON. SLDSY PATIENCE, TED
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| Ted Cordova in the Associated Press |
Earlier, in October 2006 to read my note recording 25 years after the death of my father, I sent a message offering generously to write me a biography. I transcribe this time eliminating errors, "Interesting, real and touching. I was a young reporter for AP, then PL, when I met him. He was one of the pillars of the constructive side of the national revolution. The 'skinny' deserves a good book, if you want, I'll help. It would be the best monument to his memory. Unfortunately, the original and medialunística Bolivia today, few remember his work, beginning with the cambas, for which both made, and will embrace it ... "
Ted, who was a pioneer in the use of new technologies, would have liked to know that his death was "a symbolic funeral in line" as Pia tells me, his daughter. Colleagues and friends scattered around the world exchange in these days many memories of his life. Perhaps he is still receiving our messages tedcordova@hotmail.com
