Dear Editor,
I would like to thank Mr. Haar for revealing himself. That was a remarkably quick response from a man halfway across the world.
About the only thing he got right was that I am the grandson of Claude Wathey. Again, Mr. Haar gets the important facts of Claude’s sentence and verdict wrong. That’s twice now. Mr. Haar’s source is likely a lazy journalist he looked up online that’s also living in the Dutch echo chamber.
Was it the old Volkskrant article, Mr. Haar? I remember that article. It got the sentences among those involved in the case mixed up because the guy couldn’t be bothered to fact-check (as usual with a lazy journalist).
Claude was indicted on a fantastically long list of ridiculous charges. After millions of taxpayer guilders spent looking for dead goats and God knows what else, they came up with perjury and 12 months suspended using methods that are now no longer permissible in a civilized country. That’s not a very good use of taxpayer money and state power. Once upon a time, journalists used to stand up to that sort of thing, not endorse it.
And it does matter who the sources are as well as their context when you write about the life of a man. Mr. Will Johnson was once a political opponent of Claude who has since moderated and reconciled his views with his onetime adversary. I’m sure today the two would be fast friends in a bar somewhere laughing at it all. But a story made in jest about a dead goat or cow being passed around is not evidence of a lifetime of corruption.
Then again, under the current atmosphere these days perhaps they’ll find a reason to investigate Claude again and detain his remains for 10 days while some straight-faced detective questions his bones over goat trafficking or whatever it was.
And while Mr. Johnson may have joked that Claude was a dictator when he was a young member of the opposition, that doesn’t mean Claude was one or that our historian would agree if asked that today. In fact, Mr Johnson himself condemned your twisting of his words. Claude as dictator is an old smear that can’t pass the test of logic and factual scrutiny.
With a little more practice, Mr. Haar may just yet become a real reporter. But he is not fit to write our history. And I’d rather not be lectured by a man who ran from St. Maarten after the first sign of real adversity.
Adrian Lista
