What is the deadliest war of recent years?  Afghanistan?  No. Iraq? No. Colombia? No.  Darfur? Not yet – but you are getting closer – estimates of the dead from this war are 300,000.  Add a zero and some – to around 3,900,000 and you approach the dead toll of the bloodiest war since the Nazi’s were on the march.  That war is the intercine civil war in the Congo.

Despite death and suffering on an unprecedented scale, the western media all but ignores this particular war.  A war that is ultimately about natural resources that power much of the modern communications revolution that is helping me to write this article:

There are two stories about how this war began – the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it’s a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn’t go to where the Hutu genocidaires were, at least not at first. They went to where Congo’s natural resources were – and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice – so six other countries invaded.

More media needs to be focused on this war – we need to know what is happening and how our consumer choices are fuelling it. Now a p2p project may help in that process. War correspondent David Axe – who uses the medium of comics as well as text to report from the front line,  has crowdsourced the money to go to the Congo and report back. This is a great example of people-powered media going where the real story is.

In an effort to help outsiders understand the conflict, and perhaps begin making a difference for its victims, I will travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo in September, for a period of six weeks. When I return to the U.S., I will write and publish a graphic novel about the conflict. The book will serve as a sort of follow-up to my previous graphic novels WAR FIX (NBM, 2006) and WAR IS BORING (New American Library, 2010).