Faith-Based Relief
Sep. 2nd, 2005 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenFEMA are offering a list of organisations accepting money for disaster relief. Second on that list, just under the Red Cross, is an outfit called 'Operation Blessing'.
Who are Operation Blessing? Well, there's an AP article about them here. Excerpt:
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -Airplanes sent to Zaire by evangelist Pat Robertson's tax- exempt humanitarian organization were used almost exclusively for his diamond mining business, say two pilots who flew them.
Three airplanes were flown to Zaire in September 1994 by Operation Blessing. However, chief pilot Robert Hinkle said only one or two of the roughly 40 flights during his six months in the country could be considered humanitarian. All the rest of the flights were mining-related, he told The (Norfolk) Virginia-Pilot.
Robertson's spokesman first denied the accounts by Hinkle and a co-pilot, Tahir Brohi of England. Later, Gene Kapp, vice president for public relations at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, said the planes turned out to be unsuitable for medical relief and that Robertson reimbursed Operation Blessing for their use.
"Without Mr. Robertson's generous overture, Operation Blessing would have incurred further expenses with its aircraft," he said.
Robertson refused to be interviewed directly, the newspaper said in Sunday's editions. Calls to his office on Sunday were not answered.
Hinkle, from Chandler, Ariz., said he had assumed the flights would be for humanitarian work.
"We hauled medical supplies one time," Hinkle said in a telephone interview. "It might have been about 500 pounds at the most. It was a very minimal amount." The planes were capable of carrying about 7,000 pounds, he said.
Notes that Hinkle kept during most of the flights contain entries for 36 flights, the newspaper said. Of the 17 that mention the purpose of the trip, 15 are related to diamond mining.
More on OBI here; it notes that of those "one or two" humanitarian flights, one was a medicine delivery and the other was retrieval of stranded missionaries.
Who are Operation Blessing? Well, there's an AP article about them here. Excerpt:
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -Airplanes sent to Zaire by evangelist Pat Robertson's tax- exempt humanitarian organization were used almost exclusively for his diamond mining business, say two pilots who flew them.
Three airplanes were flown to Zaire in September 1994 by Operation Blessing. However, chief pilot Robert Hinkle said only one or two of the roughly 40 flights during his six months in the country could be considered humanitarian. All the rest of the flights were mining-related, he told The (Norfolk) Virginia-Pilot.
Robertson's spokesman first denied the accounts by Hinkle and a co-pilot, Tahir Brohi of England. Later, Gene Kapp, vice president for public relations at Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, said the planes turned out to be unsuitable for medical relief and that Robertson reimbursed Operation Blessing for their use.
"Without Mr. Robertson's generous overture, Operation Blessing would have incurred further expenses with its aircraft," he said.
Robertson refused to be interviewed directly, the newspaper said in Sunday's editions. Calls to his office on Sunday were not answered.
Hinkle, from Chandler, Ariz., said he had assumed the flights would be for humanitarian work.
"We hauled medical supplies one time," Hinkle said in a telephone interview. "It might have been about 500 pounds at the most. It was a very minimal amount." The planes were capable of carrying about 7,000 pounds, he said.
Notes that Hinkle kept during most of the flights contain entries for 36 flights, the newspaper said. Of the 17 that mention the purpose of the trip, 15 are related to diamond mining.
More on OBI here; it notes that of those "one or two" humanitarian flights, one was a medicine delivery and the other was retrieval of stranded missionaries.
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Date: 2005-09-03 01:46 am (UTC)Sometimes I wish the Judiac god was real so when Pat Robertson dies he would be seriously punished. He is an evil individual.