THE INDEPENDENT (London)

US Army condemns its paras after rape
murder in Kosovo

By Mary Dejevsky in Washington

19 September 2000

The US Army, in a stinging indictment of its own standards of
training and discipline, yesterday catalogued a string of
violations by one of its units in Kosovo on the Nato
peace-keeping operation. In a 1,100-page report, an Army
investig- ator found a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division
"violated basic standards of conduct, human decency and the
Army values".

The report, released by the Pentagon, was compiled after the
rape and murder of a 12- year-old Kosovar girl by paratroop
Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi last year. He pleaded guilty and
was sentenced to life last month. But nine other members of
the same unit, A Company, 3rd Bn, 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment - slogan: "Shoot 'em in the face" - were found guilty
of abusing ethnic Albanian civilians. One arguments brought
in mitigation by Ronghi's defencewas the pervading
atmosphere in the unit. Using unusually forthright language,
the author of the report, Colonel John Morgan, said "unit
members ... intimidated, interrogated, abused and beat
Albanians". He said leaders within A Company and the 3rd Bn
knew or should have known about the numerous charges of
misconduct, including excessive use of force, by members of
their unit. By failing to investigate, he said, they had effectively
perpetuated "a volatile situation".

Col Morgan said many in the unit had believed they would be
going into combat and they were "ill-equipped" for a
peace-keeping operation. Some, he said, "experienced
difficulties tempering their combat mentality for adapting and
transitioning to" peace-keeping.