Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, was first elected president of Haiti in 1990. He won 67 percent of the vote in an election in which more than 60 percent of eligible voters participated, Joseph says. “The second time, in 2000, less than 10 percent of the population voted, and he won with 92 percent.”
But between those two elections, Aristide was ousted by his own security chief, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cédras, and it took the U.S. Marines—acting under orders of the Clinton administration—to restore Aristide to the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.
“Aristide was the first democratically elected president,” Joseph points out. “So if we’re going to set an example in Haiti, Aristide should be the first president to be tried democratically for what he has done to the country.”
The ambassador adds: “I don’t think it’s a priority right now [to extradite Aristide from South Africa]. Our priority right now is the elections, and the government that I represent is working diligently to have them. But if Aristide insists on coming back, the first thing he should do is go on trial.”
Joseph accuses Aristide of being a thoroughly corrupt leader who profited from cocaine trafficking while helping himself to millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, and in turn corrupting nearly the entire Haitian police force.
“From the beginning, I felt Aristide had no managerial capability. He had a silver tongue, that’s for sure. So when he was elected, although I didn’t thi
nk he could manage things, I thought that the stealing of Haitian funds would stop. I said to myself, ‘Finally we have a priest, somebody who’s honest and has a conscience.’”
But Joseph says he grew disillusioned with Aristide rather quickly.
“This guy became a multimillionaire on a salary of $10,000 a month,” he says. “There is still no inquiry on how he managed to get such a position as the poorest priest in the poorest parish of Port-au-Prince. He promised so much, yet failed so miserably while personally enriching himself.”
Joseph also alleges that Aristide spent $9 million a year on his personal security detail, not including $2 million for a fleet of three presidential helicopters—this in a country whose annual per-capita gross domestic product is $250 per year—about the same as Bangladesh—and falling each year.
One country that’s been enormously helpful to Haiti is neighboring Cuba, yet on this subject, Joseph has to watch what he says.
The ambassador walks a fine line between offending Fidel Castro, who has sent more than 700 doctors to work in his country, and offending the U.S. government, which is Haiti’s most important source of international aid.
“That’s how we feel,” he says. “We cannot afford to anger our big neighbor and benefactor who helps us quite a bit, but at the same time, we wonder whether the Cuban people should still be suffering for the sins of Mr. Castro.”
Despite the violence and political chaos that continues to this day, Cuba’s doctors have remained in Haiti, treating millions of impoverished Haitians that would otherwise never have received medical treatment.
“Our relationship [with Cuba] has remained the same as it was when Aristide left,” says the diplomat. “The Cuban doctors in Haiti have been very helpful. When some of our people, especially police officers, have health problems, they’re flown to Cuban hospitals. So we leave it like that. The interim government does not want to come in and disrupt anything. They’re not the warmest of relations, but they’re correct.”
Even so, Joseph hints that he doesn’t support the U.S. embargo against Cuba. “As the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere after the United States, we know the problems of an embargo,” he says. “For the first 60 years of our independence, an embargo was imposed against us [by France]. So we feel Cuba’s pain.”
He says the United States should change its economic policies toward both Caribbean nations. “Allow the Cuban economy to flourish, so that the Cubans can stay home and allow Haiti to be on par with countries like the Dominican Republic.”
Joseph adds that he’s also not happy with Washington’s immigration policy, particularly the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act that automatically allows Cuban refugees who make it to U.S. shores to stay and eventually apply for citizenship.
“The wet-foot, dry-foot policy is a relic of the Cold War,” he says. “It means that all Cubans who left are running away from a communist dictatorship, so they’re welcome as soon as they set foot in America. But the Haitians were running away from dictators who were friendly to the United States, so you cannot accept them as refugees. I believe it’s unfair. On the other hand, the Haitians are considered black, so we feel there’s a little racism here.”
There is a glimmer of hope amid the despair, however.
Joseph says the June 2005 appointment of Mario Andresol as Haiti’s new police chief has resulted in a little more law and order throughout the country.
“About six weeks ago, the bandits and thugs held sway over the whole country, but since then, we’ve seen an improvement in the situation,” he says, noting that American Airlines—which had suspended one flight each from New York and Miami to Haiti—has put those flights back in service.
“One of the most important things I did was to help lift the arms embargo against Haiti,” Joseph explains. “Our policemen had their hands tied behind their backs—no weapons, no ammunition. That has now been solved. My other priority is to open up the avenues of aid to my country. With the help of our finance minister, Henry Bazin, we have sanitized Haiti’s finances to the point where the IMF and World Bank are again giving us loans and grants for the first time since 1995.”
Joseph also says Haiti’s relations with the neighboring Dominican Republic are looking up, especially because Leonel Fernández is again the Dominican president.
“At least the two leaders, Fernández and Latortue, are friends. However, they have to deal with years of enmity between their countries,” he says. “It’s understandable. The Dominicans won their independence not from Spain, but from Haiti. So Dominican nationalism is based on anti-Haitianism. I’m glad Fernández is in office now and that Latortue is in Haiti. Otherwise, things would have exploded already.”
As for the ambassador’s own future, Joseph has done many things in his 74 years, although he may not be able to retire just yet—even if he’d like to.
“I took this position for two years, but I don’t know what’s going to happen after the elections,” he points out. “Quite a few of the candidates have been making pilgrimages here, asking me not to resign. I told all of them, ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.’”
Larry Luxner is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
