Who was Teodoro Petkoff – Venezuela – International

No one remembers Theodore about the celebration. Petkoff, her last name in Venezuela, does not have to say that. Theodore Petkoff was simply And Theodore, despite having died on Wednesday at age 86, after life full of struggles, gestures, friends and books.

Because her death news distorted all kinds of messages and comments. Teodoro's communist past is a great deal of unforgivable mistake and the demarcation of Soviet apology, his commitment to the armed struggle of the sixties or later his liberal decisions against the Ministry of Planning at the end of the nineties.

To these critics, Theodore would still be very interested in them today, then teaching them with their generous generosity with the art of correction, correction, thought and transformation. Swim against the flow, arguing, having a specialty. The paradox, your comfortable zone.

From the Polish mother and the Bulgarian father, Theodore became a polyglot and a revealing reader before being a guerrilla, politician, or economist. In the heat of the books, he decided to militarize the left side in a more utopian and deeper way, thoroughly study his postulates and dogmas and identify himself with these hands.

To find these love – directed towards literature and the left – found it Tribuna Popular, in the newspaper of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), where she met her 17-year-old partner Pompeyo Marquez.

She began to write. He always did, but he also worked as a resistance to the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez and stopped him several times.

As the Venezuelan democratic era began under the presidency of Rómulo Betancourt, this persecution for the PCV and the glamor of the Cuban revolution as the Theodore cocktail was to take over the weapons.

Falcón, Trujillo and Portuguesa were old guerrillas, with his brother Luben Petkoff, who died in battle.

He was arrested twice and both fled Marquez. For the first time he swallowed blood to visit, then he vomited the stomach ulcer (from the hospital, he took off some of the tabs he was bound by the window). Second, thanks to a cave tunnel digging from outside.

The maximum that was closed was three years where you improved your language learning She spoke in English, French, Russian and Bulgarian and read as a degenerate.

His friend, the writer Ibsen Martinez, has bought a book over the years, Hugh Thomas's story of the Spanish Civil War, which proved to be Petkoff.

"The two-color colored crayons are deeply underlined, and pretty, with a little regela, some red, some blue, and I started to see that I saw Teodoro Petkoff at the corner of a page, and when I read Theodore was secret at that time, it was wonderful to me, it was like Napoleon it would have been a story of "Galli's war", I thought that red underlings strategies, blue is tactics – he remembers."When I could ask a few years later what this meant, she laughed a lot and said," Nothing is colorful and I did not know how to emphasize in one color or another. "

Short circuit

Between the secret service and its strength, the PCV has been sent to Moscow to see the wonders of the red revolution. Then, unthinkable, the readings came into effect.

The first short-circuit occurred, thanks to the expression his father had told him very young: "Think of your own master."
The Venezuelan Central University, an economist's "cum cum laude" diploma and the freedom he argued on corridors, also did.

The revolution was much more beautiful than in the vicinity, and the resources for everyone in exchange for silence and silence were Theodore's first break, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a book called "Socialism as a Problem".

With this book he finished his guerrilla period and put his arm down. Because this book was forbidden, the ordinary enemy of the revolution, but also respected those who eliminate it, even more so if they do it with wisdom.

Are not afraid to write? I asked for some time. And he replied, "No, frankly, not because we are in Venezuela," he laughed. "Of course, this has provoked a significant emotional impact as it broke out with nearly 20-year-old political fighters."

Teodoro was launched to create the socialism he really wanted to create a right-wing, prosperous but sensitive political alternative where he had every thought. He founded the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) – just with Márquez management – to link the hearts of leftist thinkers who visit the country.

Neither Gabriel García Márquez was indifferent to the ideas and the magnetic personalities of the "tar" as claimed by the Serbian emotions in relation to the vines. Gabo introduced him to EL TIEMPO's reporter and former director, Enrique Santos Calderón, who had been a friend for many years.

"From the beginning, I admired her intellectual sincerity and her progressive stances, beyond her commitment to the idea of ​​plural and democratic socialism," Santos said.

The Government of Venezuela

Martinez had his right hand and assistant on these trips, on a beige aboard a Volskwagen Beetle, where Theodore showed his terrible talents to listen and talk about books, art and baseball.

One of the longest journeys was a two-year hiatus in Ciudad Guayana, where he wanted to bring his party to the strong iron, aluminum and gold companies in the field.

Everywhere they were happy to hear others understand the context.
"On a trip, when we worked on TalCual, and in which I was afraid of my life many times," says Briamel Zambrano, "he told me that this was one of the happiest times in the happiest two years," says Martinez.

Writer Milagros Socorro, the creator of Theodore's most complete profile, assures that the political glow of the character comes from erudition, resulting in the inexhaustible reading, the opening of new ideas and perceptions, the polygon's status and almost complete knowledge of the Venezuelan territory and reality .

Socorro points out that Petkoff, despite being twice the candidate of the country's presidency, never believed that he would occupy the position. "I never thought I would be president," Teodoro said in an interview. "I wanted to play the game, which was a national projection, but personally it was very important because I traveled several times in the country. I know this country at the last corner."

In her Transylvania and social sensitivity, President Rafael Caldera entrusted him with the designation of the design ministry at the end of the nineties. Carefully, Theodore discussed and laid the foundations for the most coherent labor legislation in Venezuela, and that Chavismo, of course, ceased to exist.

Chavism and Journalism

Hugo Chavez came to power, which signaled Petkoff's last major transformation. From politics to publishers, from media owners to journalists. He left his own party because he decided to support the "commander" who occupied Venezuela. Theodore did not fall into collective hypnosis and always warned of the militaristic danger of that figure.

He was invited without a party other than his own idea to guide the "El Mundo" night that came under the pressure of the new government – Chávez soon discovered his authoritarianism – and then founded the "TalCual" newspaper.

From there he reached the Herculei mission to write an editor every day that was published on the first page, which became a symbol of honest politics in Venezuela. In addition to the inexorable disrespect he presented the most beloved face in the newspaper, and his boss was more interested in learning than in sending.

Almost every afternoon he sat in the office to listen to the young quarry of young journalists, even if they wanted to ask their editorial opinions, clarify doubts, or fix it.

Trust reached the point where he agreed to modify the idea and joked, "I am the sole owner of the censored media in your newspaper."So he talked to the trainees when he attended a call from a former President Felipe Gonzalez or interviewed The New York Times.

But not all politics. He did not ignore any movie or book or the unlucky performance of the baseball team played by La Guaira Tiburones.

"He was generous with what he knew," remembers Maye Primera, Editor-in-Chief of TalCual for several years. "He never taught pride, but the real gesture to clarify the doubt."

Without honeybread, he was an open and protective father who was angry to know whether any of the reporters had been attacked on the street or whether he first came to the party to celebrate another as when he came to the home of Pedro Pablo Peñaloza's journalist as a journalist "I called him polite and came up with a big smile in my house to congratulate me"the communicator says. Dayimar Altuve, another reporter received blue roses from Theodore after giving birth.

Human nature, but above all the protection of justice, democracy and freedom at all costs, has always bothered Chavez, who was the first to try to silence him and then to experiment.

TalCual was the most demanding newspaper in Venezuelan history and an attempt to humiliate Theodore to appear weekly a court that could never initiate a trial – he and 22 other journalists and El Nacional – only responded to the rebellion to continue to publish.

This fight was acknowledged by Moors Cabot and Ortega y Gasset, and the latter represented his last and greatest public pleasure, in which at the age of 83 his intellectual light and human warmth again overflowed.

It was those years and failures when the hips and bone rocks broke those who made them the Theodore's spirit who escaped the restfrom where he answered a few phone calls, he said a little. "But her work is so great that they will go too far," says Laura Weffer, a journalist, the other student.

There are millions today who would have wondered what could have happened to Venezuela if Petkoff was forgiven of his communist past and was allowed to take a stronger position in the country.

The crisis responds in Venezuela independently. Enrique Santos, referring to this question: "It was a historic mistake of the traditional Venezuelan leadership that he did not understand that Teodoro Petkoff represented the best political and popular alternative to Chavism, who persecuted him by the end of the day, paying for these mistakes."

Valentina Lares Martiz
El Tiempo correspondent
Caracas