[ALBSA-Info] A Reign of Terror

[Iris Pilika]

A Reign of Terror
Part One of TIME's report on a U.S. Army investigation into abuse of 
civilians in Kosovo
By MARK THOMPSON Washington

Even before the U.S. Army released its report into the abuse of civilians by 
GIs in Kosovo, the word was out: A tiny knot of American soldiers had 
harassed and assaulted Kosovar civilians because the troops had prepared for 
war and had not be inadequately schooled in peace-keeping. "As a result, the 
[U.S. troops] experienced difficulties tempering their combat mentality for 
adapting and transitioning to the Kosovo [mission]," Col. John Morgan III 
concluded in a report. "In [this] environment, the unit's overly aggressive 
tendencies were manifested in practices such as the unit slogan, 'Shoot 'em 
in the face,' and their standard operating procedure of pointing the M-4 
carbine weapon system with the attached maglight in the face of local 
nationals in order to illuminate their faces."

The investigation was ordered by Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of 
staff, after Staff Sgt. Frank Ronghi was charged with raping and murdering a 
Kosovar Albanian girl in January. True, the guilty were only a dozen or so 
members of the storied 82nd Airborne Division, but the blame seeps far 
higher up the chain of command. Their woes began shortly after the 3rd 
Battalion of the 504th Parachute Regiment arrived in the Balkans last 
September. Once deployed to the town of Vitina, the soldiers morphed, 
figuratively if not literally, into cops, in theory poised delicately 
between the minority Serb population and Kosovar Albanians eager for revenge 
against the horrors wrought upon the Albanians by Serbian forces. The report 
concluded that top U.S. officers in the town favored Serbs, who accounted 
for about a third of the populace, over Albanians, who made up the rest.

The Army began to learn of the rot in the unit at ID TK Merita Shahibu's 
funeral. "If they can beat us," senior officers were told about the 3/504th, 
"they can also kill us." Nearly all the trouble occurred in Ronghi's unit. 
During one demonstration in January, the soldiers "verbally antagonized" the 
people they were charged with protecting. "Get the f--- out of here!" some 
of the GIs yelled at the Albanian Kosovars. "Shut the f--- up!" In many 
cases, those being sworn at didn't understand English, the report said.

"What the f--- are you doing?" a GI bellowed at an Albanian man who had 
slipped into him on an icy Vitina street. The soldier then "head-butted" the 
man with his Kevlar helmet, bloodying his nose, before Ronghi walloped him 
"with great force" in the head, leaving him dazed. The man was later 
discovered to be deaf-mute. In another case, a U.S. soldier used his machine 
gun to pin a man against a wall who seemed unwilling to answer questions; he 
was later found to be deaf.

"Many soldiers let the perceived power go to their heads, and that power was 
abused," one unidentified soldier told investigators. "It was routine for 
soldiers to use unnecessary and unprovoked physical force with the people of 
Vitina. Soldiers would spit on locals, push them on the streets, poke the 
women with sticks, and generally act like barbarians." One day when Vitina's 
streets were crowded with shoppers, a group of four soldiers, including 
Ronghi, "assaulted several females when they touched [their] hair, grabbed 
their buttocks and their body parts and spoke to them in a seductive manner. 
One soldier later confided that he groped the women "just to get a cheap 
thrill."

A civilian translator said he watched the soldiers stop women between the 
age of 15 and 25 on the sidewalks, and then hand-cuff their "husbands or 
fathers, boyfriends or brothers" who came to the women's aid. Then they 
would slap the cuffed men and punch them in their groins. "Some of the men 
were flexi-cuffed [plastic handcuffs] while they were being hit multiple 
times by various members of the squad, and they were not able to fight back 
or defend themselves," the interpreter said. "They would also grab people 
who were watching what was going on, handcuff them, and hit them also."

"The 3/504 was very heavy-handed with the people in Vitina," said an 
unidentified lieutenant colonel who witnessed the unit in action. "I tend to 
think that human dignity and respect are values, and not just rules of 
engagement," he said. "We, as Americans, have an innate feeling for what is 
right and wrong."

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