TITANYAN, Haiti, (Reuters) – Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin yesterday urged her fellow Americans not to forget Haiti as she wrapped up a two-day visit to the crisis-torn Caribbean country.
“I do urge Americans not to forget Haiti,” said Palin, who was in Haiti at the invitation of Franklin Graham, an evangelical preacher whose Christian relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, is involved in cholera treatment efforts in the deeply impoverished nation. Haiti is still recovering from the Jan. 12 quake that killed nearly a quarter of a million Haitians a year ago, and the 1.3 million people made homeless by the disaster are still living in makeshift camps and under tents and tarps in the sprawling capital Port-au-Prince.
“There were such ravaged conditions and environmental aspects of this country before the earthquake,” said Palin.
“Haiti has been a country that has suffered in the past, that’s going to continue to suffer until some fundamental changes are being made here,” she added.
The country has more recently been hit by a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 2,000 people and is wracked by political upheaval over a contested presidential election that has sparked violent street protests.
Palin, the former U.S. vice presidential candidate who is considering a presidential run in 2012, did not refer to the political chaos and charges of electoral fraud, which have led to calls for the administration of President Barack Obama to suspend aid to Haiti
