Haiti needs ‘military airlift’ of supplies: Palin

December 13, 2010 07:32 am | Updated December 04, 2021 10:49 pm IST - Port-Au-Prince(Haiti)

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin talks to the press in Cabaret, Haiti on Sunday.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin talks to the press in Cabaret, Haiti on Sunday.

Sarah Palin has urged Americans not to forget Haiti as she wrapped up a weekend visit to an aid group’s sites in this country vexed by a cholera epidemic, earthquake reconstruction and political crisis.

Accompanied by her husband, Todd; daughter Bristol, a Fox News crew and the Rev. Franklin Graham, who runs the aid group that hosted her, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate arrived in Haiti during a respite from the riots and violence that have followed the Caribbean nation’s dysfunctional November 28 election.

“I do urge Americans not to forget Haiti,” she said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.

Noting that severe problems afflicted Haiti even before last January’s devastating quake, she said her fellow citizens should “get out of your comfort zone and volunteer to help.”

Ms. Palin visited Samaritan’s Purse projects including cholera clinics where people are being treated for extreme dehydration. More than 2,000 people have died of the disease, which scientists believe was recently reintroduced into Haiti, and nearly 100,000 have fallen ill.

Ms. Palin’s trip was largely closed to the press and she declined to take questions at the news conference.

She travelled in part by helicopter, and the aid group declined to share her itinerary, citing security concerns. The U S State Department reissued last week its travel warning for Americans considering visits to Haiti.

At the news conference, Ms. Palin created some confusion when she referred to a potential drawdown of U.S. assistance to Haiti.

“I know that there’s been some discussion of U S aid perhaps being lifted from this area,” she said. “Again -- not to get political -- but if some of the politicians would come here and see the conditions, perhaps they would see a need for, say, a military airlift to come bring supplies that are so needed here.”

It was not clear what she was referring to, and a Palin spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees appropriations for Haiti, recently called for the suspension of direct budget support to the Haitian government until a solution is found to an electoral crisis that has sparked riots in recent days. But his spokesman said yesterday that he was not referring to humanitarian aid or reconstruction money.

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