24458: (reply) Leth: Re: 24448: Kondrat (reply) Re: 24447: Morse (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

Jorgen Leth, not (yet) a member of Corbettland, asked me to post this for
him:

________________

FROM:   Jørgen Leth, INTERNET:lethfilm@mail.tele.dk
DATE:   08/03/2005 09:43


Mr. Kondrat belittles Richard Morse's knowledge and ethical instinct.  I
have known him for 16 years, and in the last couple of them have followed
with appreciation his sharp and wise comments on the Corbett list.  I have
found him courageous in countering the leftist mafia's self-righteous
judgements.

I am tired of long-distance political analysis. As Morse puts it, he has "a
certain vantage point of being right in the middle of Port-au-Prince", and
he and others of us are deeply concerned with reality, with finding out the
truth, with talking to sources and trying to understand what's happening in
some situations - like the departure of Aristide - minute for minute.

When Morse, in his low-key manner, mentions his dramatic meeting at the
Oloffson with the Haitian part of Aristide's security at 2 a.m. on 29
February , after they had been abandoned by the president - note the time
and imagine, if you can, the situation - it is not a trivial or
insignificant detail, but another very enlightening element in the puzzle
of what happened.

We appreciate facts and compare notes.  This is one of the insights Richard
can offer in his comments, but to ignore such a detail and its meaning
while delivering an embarrassingly naive lecture on the acceptable reading
of Haitian history is a poor response by Mr. Kondrat.

Morse has an acute sense of moral and democratic values, and he is not the
only one who reached a breaking point in patience with Aristide. We were
all seduced at first, and later desillusioned. The rest is just politics.
It is really not a matter of sympathizing with this or that group, but
simply realizing that the criminality and brutality of a regime can be so
heavy a burden and the danger level so high that something had to happen.

It is ridiculous to compare Aristide's sins with Bill Clinton's. It is very
hard for most non-Americans to see what Clinton did wrong.  As for the
particularly humourless gesture of offering Richard a drink on his own
terrasse, how many idiots have I noticed sitting there trying to teach
Haitians to become better Haitians...


Jorgen Leth
(filmmaker)