e Pweto."The Rwandan counterattack began on Nov. 5 and raged for four days. Tibesigwa described the fighting as the most intense he had seen in Congo. At the Pepa hospital, Congolese nurse Justine Kaimba Puta said fighting that started 15 miles away moved steadily closer, bringing with it a stream of wounded that eventually covered the hospital floor. When the Rwandans were two miles away, government soldiers brought a warning to flee.The town emptied promptly, but several Pepa residents interviewed in Zambia, where thousands have gathered in a U.N. refugee camp, said they feared more than the fighting. When Rwandan forces first took Pepa last year, local residents were punished for allegedly supporting the Congolese government troops, the residents said.Two refugees described a massacre that year in Mazembe, a village near Pepa, in which dozens of residents were ordered into their huts, which soldiers then set afire. Both residents named people killed in the fire, including old men and small children. One described seeing the charred bodies.The residents were uncertain whether the soldiers were Rwandan regulars or the RCD rebels they sponsor. Both have been accused by international human rights groups of similar atrocities in territory they occupy, but the charges surface most often against the rebels."With the RCD, there are some undisciplined elements," acknowledged Nicephore Kimpinde, the assistant district commissioner installed in Pepa by the rebels. "But you can't say the whole RCD is undisciplined."Kabila's forces, too, slaughtered civilians when they occupied the area in October, he said. "We collected 10 civilian bodies and buried them," said Patrick Murlambui, another Pepa official. "They were accused of belonging to the RCD intelligence. They were innocent. There was no proof. Everybody who stayed in this region is looked at as an RCD sympathizer.""It's a war on civilians," said Puta, the nurse.'The Right Tactics'The Rwandan...
