[ALBSA-Info] Actions Louder Than Words

[Iris Pilika]

TIME EUROPE
Saturday, September 23, 2000

Actions Louder Than Words
The conclusion of TIME's report on a U.S. Army investigation into abuse of 
civilians in Kosovo
By MARK THOMPSON Washington

The U.S. Army was not pleased by the actions and abuse chronicled in the 
Morgan report. "The incidents detailed in this report of investigation are 
not in keeping with the Army's core values and should never have occurred," 
the Army said in a statement accompanying the report. "Even though this 
behavior appears to have been limited to a small number of soldiers, Army 
leaders at all levels must remain vigilant to ensure this behavior or the 
conditions that might foster this type of behavior do not reoccur."

This is not to suggest peacekeeping — where a mistake can kill — is easy. 
But the Army designed its rules of engagement to ensure civilian casualties 
are kept to a minimum. Soldiers are instructed to call back to headquarters 
and ask permission to "go red" — prepare to fire their weapons — unless 
their lives are in imminent danger. NATO rules also required each to carry a 
blue pocket card detailing how civilians are to be treated. "Use the minimum 
force necessary to accomplish your mission," it began. "Treat everyone, 
including civilians and detained hostile forces/belligerents, humanely." 
Locals had been told never to approach soldiers with their hands hidden. 
Invariably, not everyone gets the message. One soldier threw a man to the 
ground, handcuffed him and had him taken away to jail. "I later found out," 
the unidentified private said ruefully, "that the man was asking me for a 
lighter."

The report criticized the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Michael Ellerbe, for 
ignoring claims that his men were mistreating the civilians they were 
supposed to be protecting. "Unit members violated the limits and terms of 
their military assignments by intimidating, interrogating, abusing and 
beating Albanians and by traveling outside of their physically assigned 
sector to conduct some of these activities," the report said. "The facts 
reveal several incidents of soldier misconduct towards females, including 
inappropriate touching, grabbing of breasts and buttocks and the perception 
of Kosovar females of improper searches conducted by soldiers." Ellerbe 
didn't see it that way. "My goal was to eliminate the [para-military Kosovar 
Albanians] and to maintain a safe and secure environment, which is what my 
unit was attempting to do," he told investigators.

But they crossed the line. U.S. troops took an Albanian man suspected of 
wrongdoing to a field outside of town, where they measured his height. The 
GIs "proceeded to dig a grave in front of the Albanian," and then declared 
"that if he did not tell him what he wanted to know that they were going to 
shoot him, and bury him, and that no one would ever know," an unidentified 
soldier said.

Many of the confessions transcribed in the report have a 
"suddenly-I-realized-I-was-wrong" tone. But sometimes, actions speak louder 
than words. In some cases, the U.S. troops — contrary to their 
chocolate-tossing image — were little more than the infamous "Blue Meanies" 
that terrorized Pepperland in the Beatles' Yellow Submarine movie. Soldiers 
would knock down the carefully-constructed stacks of cigarette packs that 
vendors had built.

Platoon leader 1st Lt. John S. Serafini had this thing about snowballs, 
common in the Balkans in the winter. "If he saw anyone with snowballs, he 
would take them from them and step on the snowballs," said an unidentified 
civilian interpreter. "He said he did this because he hated snowballs."

Army officials insist that its brutish soldiers in Kosovo were only a tiny 
slice of its 5,500-strong force there. They express concern that the dirty 
deeds perpetrated by a dozen thugs could overshadow the good work done by 
thousands of their compatriots.



_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at 
http://profiles.msn.com.