In a lengthy interview with The Washington Diplomat, Joseph said the HERO Actsponsored in the House by Rep.
Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)would create 100,000 to 150,000 jobs in Haitis once vibrant manufacturing sector.
From 80,000 jobs at one time, the manufacturing sector has dwindled to 25,000 jobs, Joseph says.
My priority is to help get this HERO Act passed in Congress in order to entice U.S. companies to come back to
Haiti, especially in textiles. We think it would be a good thing, especially when China is gobbling up the whole
market.
The ambassador suggests that passage of this act would go a long way to alleviate the problem of would-be
economic refugees who desperately try to make it to Florida in search of a better life. Obviously, HERO will also
benefit the United States, which wont need to spend valuable resources in its interdiction of boat people, and in
the incarceration of those who manage to get through the Coast Guard net. It will also mean less foreign aid going
out from the United States to Haiti.
But even non-protectionist members of Congress are likely to oppose HERO, given Haitis particularly volatile
recent history.
At present, about 7,000 U.N. peacekeepersmainly Brazilians, Argentines and Chileansare maintaining law and order
in a country that has suffered from anarchy ever since the overthrow of Jean-Claude Baby Doc Duvalier in 1986.
I think 7,000 is not enough, the ambassador says. We need 12,000 to 15,000 troops, and they should be
concentrated in Port-au-Prince, because the rest of the country is now quiet.
Joseph, 74, is Haitis first full-fledged ambassador in Washington since 1997. He represents the interim prime
minister, Gerard Latortue, who took over following the February 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
National elections to replace the current transitional government in Port-au-Prince are scheduled for Dec. 11, with
a runoff set for Jan. 3.
Yet chaos and violence is nothing new for Haiti, which in 1804 became the worlds first independent black republic
following a violent struggle against French colonizers.
The ambassador, who looks considerably younger than his age suggests, has been around long enough to know that 200
years of poverty and bloodshed wont be erased overnight.
He was born in 1931 in the Dominican town of San Pedro de Macoris, which is famous for producing more professional
baseball players than anywhere else on earth.
My father left Haiti when he was 17, my mother when she was 20, Joseph recalls. I spent the first seven years of
my life in the Dominican Republic. Spanish was my first language.
Like his father, a Baptist minister, Joseph devoted much of his life to religious studies. He attended the Moody
Bible Institute in Chicago, and in 1960 translated the New Testament and psalms into Haitian Creole under the
auspices of the American Bible Society.
Joseph later spent 19 years in New York under a death sentence imposed in absentia by the murderous regime of
Francois Papa Doc Duvalier, who was enraged by his broadcasts and writings against the dictatorship. During
that time, Joseph got a job as a financial reporter for the Wall Street Journal. From 1970 to 1984, he covered
everything from the Manville asbestos trials to the advent of the Sony Walkman.
In 1984, Joseph resigned from the Journal to edit the Brooklyn community newspaper he owned with his brother,
Haiti LObservateur.
According to a recent column in the New York Sun, After the Duvaliers were ousted, Mr. Joseph served as charge
daffaires in Washington, but in 1991 he returned to the paper in Brooklyn. Although Mr. Joseph recognized the
work against the Duvaliers of Jean-Bertand Aristide, he issued early warnings against Mr. Aristides penchant for
dictatorship. In the past two years, he kept readers of both the Observateur and the Sun well ahead of the curve of
Mr. Aristides descent.
Joseph returned as charge daffaires of the Haitian Embassy in April 2004, and officially became ambassador in
August 2005.
When I presented my credentials, I had to bring in the letter of recall of the last ambassador, Jean Casimir,
who left here in 1997, he says. There had been no Haitian ambassador for eight years, which means the former
government didnt give the United States the recognition it deserves. Mind you, this is the most powerful nation
on earth, the biggest neighbor of Haiti, the one that did more to help the former government return to power than
anyone else, and we didnt even have diplomatic representation at the level of ambassador.
In his new capacity, Joseph oversees 40 staffers. The Haitian Embassy, fronting Massachusetts Avenue, operates on
a monthly budget of $150,000, the bulk of that money coming from passport and visa fees. It maintains close ties
with the Haitian-American community, estimated at 1.5 million.
Joseph also supervises four Haitian consulates in New York, Miami, Chicago and Boston. A fifth consulate will be
