Cover Profile / Ambassador Raymond Joseph Haiti’s Envoy Determined to Help Lift Ravaged Nation from the Wreckage by Larry Luxner Barely two weeks before the earthquake that ravaged his country, Raymond Joseph and his wife, Lola Poisson, were hosting a joyous Haitian Independence Day celebration at their Bethesda, Md., residence. During the party, the ambassador boldly predicted that 2010 would be a record year for cruise ship tourism to his struggling Caribbean country. Then, on Jan. 12, all the lights went out and a shroud of darkness settled in over Haiti. The 78-year-old veteran diplomat was working at his desk when, a few minutes before 5 p.m., an aide informed him that Port-au-Prince had just been leveled by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake, a disaster that may have killed upward of 200,000 people — far more than the initial estimates of 50,000. Although with tens of thousands of bodies dumped into mass graves, a final count of the exact number of dead will probably be impossible, robbing Haitians not only of loved ones, but of their identities as well. “Right away, I tried to call the president’s office, but I couldn’t get through,” Joseph recalled. “Then I tried the president’s chief of staff, Fritz Longchamp, and by pure luck, Fritz picked up his cell phone. He said to me, ‘Mr. Ambassador, you wouldn’t believe it. The houses are collapsing right and left. The only thing I can do is park my car and walk, not knowing when I’m going to get home or how.’” Joseph, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States since 2005, has spoken to The Washington Diplomat several times since the quake, in between a constant flurry of high-profile media interviews, coordination of relief efforts, and meetings with State Department officials, local Haitian community leaders and fellow ambassadors. He’s been getting by on three or four hours of sleep every night (and at one point talked to The Diplomat until midnight shortly after the disaster). “This is a catastrophe of major proportions,” declared the ambassador, who was fortunate not to lose anyone in the quake because most of his family left Haiti long ago. Joseph said he has no plans to go back right now “because they need somebody here in Washington to explain what’s going on there, and they say I’m doing a pretty good job.” In the weeks since the deadliest natural disaster to strike the Caribbean in centuries, Joseph has in fact become one of the most recognizable ambassadors in Washington. CNN, PBS, MSNBC and Al Jazeera have all transmitted his calm, reassuring image to viewers around the world, and a Google search of “Raymond Joseph” and “Haiti earthquake” turns up no less than 65,000 results. Meanwhile, the Haitian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue has been transformed into a virtual command center, its reception area crowded with volunteers wanting to help and Haitians seeking information on missing loved ones. A sign taped to the front door informs the public that what Haiti really needs right now isn’t blankets, clothing or canned goods but money — and directs well-meaning individuals to a Web site accepting online donations. On Jan. 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Joseph presided over a solemn candlelight vigil at the embassy to mourn those who died in the quake and urge survivors and their families not to lose faith. The following day, he and D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty appeared on the steps of the embassy for a joint press conference to announce that the District had donated 20 computers, phones and other equipment to help the small embassy deal with the worst crisis in its history. “This is going to take away some of the burden from the embassy’s telephone system, which was overloaded,” said Joseph, whose 45-member mission survives on a monthly budget of $150,000, the bulk of that money coming from passport and visa fees. It also maintains close ties with the Haitian-American community, estimated at 1.5 million. “This last Sunday, we got overwhelmed with donations, so the city put trucks at its disposal to cart these things away and store them in a D.C. government warehouses, where they’re being sorted through,” said the ambassador. “Massachusetts Avenue was blocked for hours. It’s unbelievable.” Joseph said he’s heartened by the outpouring of sympathy and contributions from average Americans and nonprofit organizations. But he’s also asking Wall Street to open up its collective wallet and show its generosity at a moment when hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors are hungry, seriously dehydrated and sick. “Today the president of Chase called me and said he’s giving $1 million to the Red Cross in the name of Haiti. I expect others to do the same thing,” he said. The need can’t be overstated in a nation that was already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. The United Nations estimates that 3 million people — a third of Haiti’s population — need assistance. The United Nations itself suffered its single greatest loss of life ever when the Christopher Hotel, which housed the world body’s headquarters in Haiti, collapsed. Haiti’s Presidential Palace, Parliament and National Cathedral are also in ruins. Heart-wrenching scenes of bloated, decomposing bodies piled up the streets and human limbs poking from the rubble stunned the world. But as an outpouring of international support flooded in, aid workers faced a logistical nightmare in the barely functioning country, leaving Haitians desperate for food, water, shelter and medical attention. Meanwhile, strong aftershocks — including a 6.1-magnitude tremor on Jan. 20 — rattled terrorized survivors and aid workers on the scene. The United Nations has authorized sending 3,500 peacekeepers to restore order and protect relief convoys, raising its presence in Haiti to more than 12,500, though it remains to be seen how quickly those forces can be deployed. Meanwhile, the United States has taken the lead in coordinating much of the immediate relief effort. There are 2,000 U.S. troops already on the ground and 9,000 on ships or helicopters offshore. Despite the widespread loss of life, the decimation of infrastructure and buildings, and the general chaos and frustration, Joseph told The Diplomat he doesn’t expect a breakdown of authority in the wake of this latest tragedy. “Something has changed in Haiti in the last few years,” he said. “With René Préval’s election as president in 2006, there’s been a big change and you have to give Préval credit. He is the first modern Haitian president to create a broad-based unity government. If you didn’t have that kind of government, when there were food riots in 2007, the whole government would have collapsed.” As of press time, Joseph has not spoken even once with his president, who’s been criticized by some observers as aloof and unwilling to visit stricken areas of Port-au-Prince. The ambassador has, however, been in regular contact with Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and other senior members of Haiti’s leadership — much of which was wiped out when key government buildings were destroyed. Since the quake, Haiti’s cabinet has been meeting on a daily basis in the headquarters of the judicial police, right near Port-au-Prince’s international airport, which is now under the direct control of the U.S. military — though the United States stresses that the Préval government is in control and that Haiti’s sovereignty remains intact. But will law and order remain intact in the critical weeks to come? Asked about rising concerns of widespread disease, looting and even civil war in the wake of this tragedy, Joseph got a little testy. “Put civil war out of this list,” he said. “There is no civil war in the making. Most Haitian political parties are now working together. President Préval did something great in 2006 when he brought members of the opposition into the government, so everybody has a stake in the government. “And as far as the looting we’ve seen on CNN, when you have people who haven’t eaten for four or five days and now they have a chance to get something, they’ll go for it. That’s human nature,” the ambassador pointedly added. “But has law and order broken down? Far from it. These are only isolated cases.” The ambassador’s ease with journalists following the earthquake — which has thrust Haiti into the international spotlight like never before — stems perhaps from his own background as a journalist. Born in the Dominican city of San Pedro de Macorís, he spent 19 years in New York under a death sentence imposed in absentia by the murderous regime of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who was enraged by Joseph’s radio broadcasts and writings against the dictatorship. During the 1970s and early ’80s, Joseph worked as a financial reporter for the Wall Street Journal, resigning in 1984 to edit the Brooklyn community newspaper he co-founded with his brother, Haiti Observateur, the first crusading commercial Haitian weekly. In 2005, he became Haiti’s first full-fledged ambassador in Washington since 1998. A graduate pastor from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Joseph has also devoted much of his life to religious studies, as did his father, a Baptist minister. Having come from such a deeply devout country, Joseph said he isn’t sure what impact the earthquake and its aftermath will have on his 9 million fellow Haitians. “It may turn them more toward religion, or it may shy them away from it,” he wondered. “Some people may ask if there really is a God. And if there is a God, what did we do to deserve this?” That’s a question some Americans might have wondered in the wake of televangelist Pat Robertson’s comment that the unlucky Haitians somehow had it coming to them because their ancestors had “made a pact with the devil” to free the country from French rule in the early 19th century, resulting in the country’s independence in 1804 as the world’s first black republic. “I had to respond very quickly to that,” Joseph said. “I would like the whole world to know — America especially — that the independence of Haiti, when the slaves rose up against the French and defeated the powerful French army, made it possible for the United States to gain the Louisiana Territory for $15 million. That’s three cents an acre. That’s 13 states west of the Mississippi that the Haitian slave revolt provided. Also, the revolt of the rebels in Haiti allowed Latin America to be free. It is from Haiti that Simón Bolívar left with men and boats to deliver Gran Colombia and the rest of South America. So whatever pact the Haitians ‘made with the devil’ has helped the United States become what it is today.” Next Page