Profile: Palmer Legare

The Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean (EPICA) sponsors a fact-finding trip to Haiti to investigate human rights conditions under the new government. Palmer Legare, a member of a Vermont citizens’ lobby group who participates in the investigation, tells a local newspaper upon returning from Haiti: “It’s very clear that members and supporters of Aristide’s party are being targeted. They’re being arrested, they’re being beaten, they’re being killed.” Legar recounts one particularly violent incident during which a boy was shot in the back by troops after running away from them out of fear. “He almost died because [the troops] closed the streets and he couldn’t get to a hospital,” Legare explains. [Brattleboro Reformer, 4/30/2004]