The Washington Diplomat

The ambassador’s contempt for Pat Robertson is matched only by his admiration for President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, who along with his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spent their honeymoon in Haiti and have now emerged as Haiti’s most powerful advocates in Washington.

Joseph warmly praised the Obama administration’s decision to grant temporary protected status (TPS) to Haitians living in the United States illegally as of Jan. 12 (though TPS does not extend to those attempting to reach U.S. soil after that date). The administration has also said that orphaned Haitian children who are eligible for adoption by U.S. citizens would be allowed into the United States temporarily to receive care.

The next step, according to Joseph, is to put some more muscle into the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act of 2006. Known as the HOPE Act, this piece of legislation gives preferential access to U.S. imports of Haitian apparel. Joseph argues that it should be expanded to create tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs throughout Haiti.

“Certain aspects of the HOPE Act can be liberalized to allow some third countries to benefit,” he said. For example, Haiti could use fabric sourced from China to be transformed into garments for duty-free export into the United States — a privilege not enjoyed by any country at present. That could bring Haiti back up to its pre-1992 levels, when apparel exports generated $300 million a year for the country.

The bottom line, says the ambassador, is that massive U.S. assistance to Haiti in its hour of need is not only the right thing — but also the prudent thing — to do. And it absolutely must continue long after the dramatic photographs and headlines have faded from the public’s collective memory.

“I’m talking about billions of dollars,” said Joseph. “We have to rebuild. That’s why I say we must find the funds, and the international community must come to the support of Haiti — because of what Haiti itself has done for the world long ago.”

But the ambassador declined to put a number on this urgently needed aid package. “It’s only been a week, and they haven’t sat down to plan for the long term. It’s rather early for us to have an idea how many billions of dollars it’s going to take. But I’m quite sure it’ll run into the billions of dollars,” he said.

On Jan. 25, the Canadian government will host a meeting of foreign ministers in Ottawa to focus on Haiti’s needs and prepare for a major donors’ meeting. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers from Haiti, Canada, France and several Latin American nations are expected to attend.

“Looking at it from the self-interest point of view, does the United States want to continue keeping Haiti down as it is — and for us to be feeling good always writing about the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” Joseph mused, “or does it want to help Haiti develop, and become a neighbor that is not causing problems anymore and attracting its citizens back, even those who are in the U.S. illegally?”

Joseph warned that if economic opportunities through tourism, construction and manufacturing aren’t created quickly, thousands of Haitian refugees might take to the seas, overwhelming the U.S. Coast Guard in their desperation to reach the shores of Florida.

“If you create economic activity, people are not going to leave. But if you don’t, I’m quite sure we’ll start having another exodus. It’ll become a big scandal, with a lot of people drowning. I don’t see the Obama administration doing that kind of stuff,” he said. “So it’s in everybody’s advantage to spend billions to help develop Haiti, put jobs in Haiti and keep the Haitians at home.”

But given the massive destruction, many Haitians have been forced to rethink where “home” is — leading Joseph to record a message in Haitian Creole a few days after the earthquake struck.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he warned in a sound bite transmitted over several leading Haitian radio stations. “If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. They will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”

Massive internal migration is already under way, however, as thousands of earthquake survivors attempt to flee Port-au-Prince by any means possible. “They’re not going to Les Cayes or Jacmel, because both of those cities were also hit. The whole southern peninsula of Haiti was hit,” Joseph explained. “They’re going to the central plateau, even as far north as Port-de-Paix, where they have family.”

With Port-au-Prince in shambles and people leaving en masse, the ambassador argues it may be time to completely rethink how the Haitian capital should be rebuilt, given that the earthquake epicenter was just 10 miles outside the crowded city.

“We should take this opportunity to carry out the decentralization of Port-au-Prince, which is something we’ve been talking about for a long time. By building cities outside of Port-au-Prince, you have a way of giving people jobs and creating an environment that keeps them home instead of taking to the seas in boats.”

Although it’s the ambassador’s view that the capital city and its 2 million inhabitants should be relocated, Joseph concedes that it won’t necessarily happen.

“Even if it doesn’t, Port-au-Prince will be downsized and the excess population moved elsewhere. We should start putting cities up in the mountains above Port-au-Prince, toward the Dominican border,” he said. “Port-au-Prince is a destroyed city. Everybody’s saying that. And I’m saying that the silver lining in this is that all those shantytowns that disfigured the city — this time they’re gone forever. Our government should take this opportunity to build outside of Port-au-Prince. We’ve been talking about that for quite a while.”

Of course, all of this takes money, and lots of it.

“In Brazil, they built a new capital, Brasília, from nothing, but they had money. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. I’m quite sure, however, that with the destruction of Port-au-Prince a lot of people who flock to the city are going to be afraid of staying there. In the long term, it will be for the good,” he said.

“The city was built for a population of 40,000 to 50,000. So with all the flimsy abodes and matchboxes dotting the mountainsides, the place was a disaster in the making,” he added. “Back in April 2004, when I wrote that Port-au-Prince was a disaster waiting to happen, I was thinking about flash floods coming in and washing all these little houses off the cliffs, and Port-au-Prince would become a doomsday.”

Yet chaos and poverty are nothing new for Haiti, which even before the earthquake struggled on an annual gross domestic product of only $300 million. That translates into a per-capita GDP of $250 — less than Bangladesh — and falling every year.

The impoverished country had finally been making some tentative progress, especially with Bill Clinton serving as U.N. special envoy for Haiti — which only adds another layer of heartache to the tragedy.

Clinton — who’s now been joined by former President George W. Bush to lead a long-term fundraising effort — insists that the Haitian people “can escape their history and build a better future.”

“It’s gonna take a lot of help and a long time,” the former president warned.

So far, in the last few weeks, help has poured into Haiti from nearby countries like Cuba, which is supplying hundreds of doctors and nurses, and faraway ones like China, which doesn’t even maintain diplomatic relations with Port-au-Prince due to Haiti’s recognition of Taiwan.

Likewise, Haiti’s mission in Washington has received a steady stream of diplomatic visitors offering condolences — beginning with Roberto Saladin, whose country, the Dominican Republic, shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Others who visited or called the embassy in the first 24 hours after the earthquake included the ambassador of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, La Celia Prince, as well as the former envoys of Barbados (Michael King) and Grenada (Denis Antoine).

“This has given me a chance to see the world’s solidarity with the people of Haiti and has really empowered me to do more for this country, which deserves so much more than it’s gotten over the years from the rest of the world,” said Joseph.

He added that “if people see that the money spent in Haiti is showing good results, they might even see Haiti as the next place for them to go on vacation. I really think Haiti is like the last frontier as far as development. Even though now Haiti is a victim, it stands to benefit from all this consciousness.”

Asked how he might keep the world’s attention focused on Haiti long after the immediate crisis is over, Joseph responded: “We maintain it by getting to work and putting to good use all the help we have gotten. I think Haiti has a great chance to shine, to start doing things differently from the past. President Préval’s government over there — and I over here — are committed to doing just that.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.