Desperate Battle Defines Congos Warlike Peace

Desperate Battle Defines Congo's Warlike Peace

At the southern extreme of a ragged front line that winds 1,400 miles across Congo lies a ferry, dirty pink and half-submerged in the muddy Luvua River. Facing it on a gravel ramp stand the burned-out husks of 33 military vehicles -- armored personnel carriers, trucks, an ambulance -- waiting in a line that never moved forward. Unopened syringes lie underfoot, amid charred tires and a trampled note that a fleeing Congolese junior officer left behind:

"Attaque," reads the neat cursive French.

But by the time Rwandan forces approached Pweto on Dec. 3, the Congolese government army was in no

The Interahamwe were now allied with Kabila, and more formidable as a result. What had been degenerating into a ragtag guerrilla force was receiving new weapons from the Congolese government and new training from the army of Zimbabwe, which also rushed to support Kabila against the Rwandan invasion.

But when shells began exploding behind the Rwandans' Pepa foxholes in the predawn hours of Oct. 15, the charge was led by yet another force. Hutu extremists from Burundi -- another tiny country divided by the Hutu-Tutsi chasm -- made up the brunt of the eight brigades that pushed across the rolling rangeland, according to Rwandan commanders. The Congolese infantry also advanced, reinforced by armored personnel carriers and British-made Hawker combat aircraft, both from Zimbabwe.

"They were coming in big numbers, really very big numbers," said Lt. Col. John Tibesigwa, the Rwandan commander at