After turmoil at Haiti’s embassy in Washington, a familiar face is named to take over
A longtime respected career diplomat, who first entered Haiti’s foreign service in 1982 as an assistant commercial attaché at Haiti’s embassy in Washington, has been tapped by the government to represent the country’s interests in the United States as its top diplomat.
Louis Harold Joseph has been named acting chargé d’affaires at the Haiti embassy in the United States. He is expected to arrive at the post later this week after saying his goodbyes in The Bahamas, where he was in charge of Haiti’s embassy.
Because Haiti currently has no elected officials, including a president or parliament, Joseph cannot be named ambassador, a title he previously held both at the embassy in Washington and The Bahamas during his career. He has also headed the Haiti mission in Japan.
In his new role, Joseph replaces Bochitt Edmond, Haiti’s former ambassador to the U.S., who was abruptly recalled back to Port-au-Prince —and then fired — at the request of the U.S. State Department after being implicated in a money-laundering scheme and clandestine passport-production operation inside the Haitian embassy.
Edmond has strongly denied the allegations, which also implicated his sister, Betyna Edmond, and several other employees, including the head of the consular section, Gélorme Juste. All are expected to face wider scrutiny as Haiti’s anti-corruption unit and government auditors carry out separate investigations in the coming weeks.
A Haitian government inquiry in August 2021 accused Bocchit Edmond of profiting from the unsanctioned scheme, which involved embassy staffers producing passports for Haitians living outside the United States and charging bribes to expedite them. The scheme was first discovered by U.S. federal agents when U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized documents and $50,000 cash addressed to Juste’s Washington-area home.
Joseph, who is originally from Cap-Haïtien and is an economist by training, is no stranger to working in Washington — or being tapped to clean up diplomatic scandals on behalf of Haitian governments. Through his lengthy career, he has held at least five different positions inside the Haiti embassy in Washington including serving as chargé d’affaires between 1997-2002 and as ambassador between September 2010 and November 2011 under President René Préval.
“Given the circumstances, Harold is the most appropriate person to assume the transition: The least political and the most knowledgeable Haitian diplomat regarding the U.S.,” said Fritz Longchamp, a former chief of staff for Préval who once served as Haiti’s foreign minister.
Joseph “has the skills and the integrity for the job,” Longchamp said.
Prior to becoming Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. nine months after the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, Joseph served eight years as ambassador to The Bahamas, during which time he also was resident dean of the diplomatic corps from 2007-10. In The Bahamas, Joseph had to navigate thorny relations between Haiti and one of one of its closest Caribbean neighbors as the archipelago struggled to combat illegal migration from Haiti.
He also was ambassador when The Bahamas hosted a meeting between then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Caribbean Community leaders as they tried to mediate the political crisis that eventually led to the 2004 ouster of Aristide.
Last year, Joseph was once more called upon by Haitian authorities to provide assistance with Haitian-Bahamian relations when at least 17 Florida-bound Haitians died in a July migrant-boat smuggling operation off the coast of Nassau, and the local Haitian government representative fumbled the response, further angering Bahamian government officials.
As Haiti’s top representative in Washington, Joseph will not only have to lead clean up efforts inside the embassy, where many others are expected to be dismissed or transferred over the passport scandal, but work with the foreign ministry to convey the Ariel Henry government’s position. Internationally, the government is facing increased pressure to broaden a political agreement and to hold elections. At home, Haitians are demanding relief from violent gangs, deepening hunger and a collapsing economy.
On Monday, four additional armored vehicles purchased by the government from a supplier in Canada were flown to Port-au-Prince aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 as part of a mission requested by the U.S. State Department Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, a spokesperson with U.S. Southern Command confirmed.
In a separate statement, following last month’s U.N. Security Council meeting in which Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his call for international forces to be deployed to help the Haitian police, the Council showed no signs that outside help was coming. Instead, members expressed deep concern over the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, and called on Haiti’s political actors to come together and find away out of the crisis.
