Cartoon Movement

Army Of God, Part 4

Today we publish the fourth installment of Army Of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. This chapter examines the history of the infamous leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, who has long evaded capture. Over the last year, Kony has virtually become a household name and efforts to arrest him have been ramping up. Just yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Ugandan forces had captured one of his top commanders.

If you aren't caught up on Army Of God, check out previous chapters on our project page.

Preview: Army Of God, Chapter 3

Monday, May 14th we will publish the fourth installment of Army Of God, the graphic novel length work of comics journalism by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. Monday's chapter focuses on the history of Joseph Kony, the elusive LRA leader who became a household name in the western world this year.

Army Of God, Part 3

Today we publish the third installment of Army Of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton. This chapter focuses on Farruccio Gobbi, a Catholic priest working in Congo and his experience during the massacre in Duru in 2008.

Read the previous chapters at our Army Of God project page.

Preview: Army of God, Part 3

On Monday we'll publish the third installment of Army of God, comics journalism about the Lord's Resistance Army in Congo. Part 1 and 2 can be read here.

Get Kony

By David Axe

I crossed paths with the San Diego-based aid group Invisible Children in October 2010 in Dungu, a town in eastern Congo. I was there reporting on the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group. Invisible Children's Adam Finck was there for the LRA, too. The aid group had scored some big corporate grants that it was using to buy radios for isolated Congolese communities. The idea being: when the LRA attacked, the villagers could radio for help.

I had just come from meeting some of the LRA's victims, including a 13-year-old girl whose father was murdered by the LRA right in front of her–a story we are telling in a future chapter of Army Of God. The rebels kidnapped the girl and her brother and raped her repeatedly They would have forced her to kill for the group, too, but luckily the Ugandan army raided the encampment and freed her. Other people have suffered even worse. The LRA likes to mark some of its victims by cutting off their lips.

Over beers at the U.N. compound in Dungu, Adam and I talked about Joseph Kony, the LRA's firebrand leader who for two decades has enslaved and brainwashed children while cutting a bloody swath across northern Uganda, Congo, Sudan and Central African Republic, raping or killing tens of thousands and displacing millions. Long uprooted from its Ugandan homeland, Kony and the LRA no longer have any clear political aims. They killed as a way of life, evading repeated attempts to round them up by the armies of a dozen nations.

Neither Adam nor I is what you could call a militarist. He's an unarmed volunteer advocating the protection of vulnerable children. I'm a war correspondent who's seen more than enough death and destruction for one lifetime. But we agreed: Kony needs killing. More to the point, he can be killed. In many conflicts, killing any one man has little effect. Even the Afghanistan war continued after Osama Bin Laden's May 2011 killing by U.S. Navy SEALs. But unlike Bin Laden, Kony has no local support, no grassroots politics and only a few hundred foot soldiers. Killing Kony would most likely destroy the LRA and save potentially thousands of lives.

So I was not surprised when, last week, Invisible Children launched a major social media campaign, Kony 2012, aimed at raising awareness of Kony and his crimes, and advocating for a sustained U.S. military role in the hunt for the LRA leader. U.S. Special Forces deployed to Central Africa last year to assist the Ugandans, Congolese, Sudanese and Central Africans in their various campaigns against Kony.

The Kony 2012 campaign is not perfect. The headlining video oversimplifies some of the realities of Kony's disposition and the LRA's crimes. Some critics have pointed out that Invisible Children typically invests just a third of its millions of dollars in direct assistance to vulnerable children; most of the rest is spent on staff, travel and videos. Still others warn that sustained military action against Kony could come at a high cost: Americans and African civilians killed, potentially billions of dollars spent with no guarantee of success, possible political blowback from a the U.S. military presence.

I appreciate the criticism of Invisible Children, but I stand by the words Finck and I exchanged that night two years ago. Kony is a monster. Capturing or killing him will not be easy, but it is possible -- and it can be achieved without sparking a wider war. Violence is rarely the answer to the world's problems. But sometimes it is.

Support Invisible Children. Get Kony. Save lives.

David Axe is a freelance war correspondent. His most recent book is From A to B: How Logistics Fuels American Power and Prosperity. He blogs at www.warisboring.com.

#Kony2012 – Hashtag you can believe in

By Brian Conley

There has been quite a lot of controversy, discussion, and even outright arguing about the #Kony2012 campaign. Discussion has flared across the internet, and of course here at the South By Southwest festival, where the internet comes to party. 

As a filmmaker, media trainer, and father, I have a conflicted amalgam of emotions about the campaign. Kony2012 is a beautiful piece of media, though I worry it exploits the founder's son in a way I wouldn't feel comfortable using my own daughter, and certainly it undermines the agency of Ugandans as implementers of change in their lives.

In 2005 I went to Iraq to assist average Iraqis to become visible to the international community, and particularly to Americans. That trip spawned Alive in Baghdad, a weekly news and documentary program, produced by Iraqi filmmakers, that ran for three years. It also provided the inspiration to launch Small World News Alive.in/ Network, resulting in enabling the creation and publication of hundreds of stories by dozens of citizens in conflict and post-conflict states, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, India, and Mexico.

I have seen the influence and impact of Invisible Children for years. It is undeniable that, as a piece of filmmaking, the #StopKony2012 video is slicker than anything my colleagues have ever produced. It has also been viewed many times more than our entire collection of videos. It is hard to measure the impact of training journalists and getting their content seen on the internet.

However, the videos produced by the Community Correspondents of the IndiaUnheard program I developed in 2010 have created dozens of impacts in just two years. This impact was created by enabling rural Indian communities to take an active role in telling their own stories. They were not voiceless, only unheard, and now they are seen for the first time by viewers all over India and the world.

The individuals behind Invisible Children have been working to stop Joseph Kony for eight years. YouTube has existed for 6 of those, and has been a massive driver of internet traffic for at least the last few. When will Invisible Children begin to help Ugandans to join the social media revolution, and tell their own stories?

It is undeniable that Invisible Children has affected great change through the establishment of schools and the creation of the LRA early warning system. However, neither schools nor radio antennas have put an end to the LRA. Apparently this is the impetus for Kony2012.

Now that Invisible Children has placed so much focus on arresting Kony, its worth asking, what happens if they succeed?

Invisible Children has been very successful at telling the stories of Ugandans affected by war. If success is measured by viewership, their model is far more successful than Small World News. Small World News focuses first on developing the capacity of local people to tell their own stories. Since Invisible Children has focused so much effort on telling stories *for* Ugandans, I am left wondering how Ugandans will advocate for themselves in the world of 2013 without Joseph Kony. 

If Invisible Children can leverage the incredible infrastructure and networks they have established in Uganda, and around the world, there may yet be an opportunity. It remains to be seen whether the very real criticism of Ugandans and others can be paired with the very real success of Invisible Children. If the issues can be sorted out, I have hope that 2013 can be the year we all work harder to support the agency of Ugandans. Though it may take the international community to remove Kony, it will take more than hashtags to change the realities that enabled Kony to last this long.

Brian Conley is the founder of Small World News, which provides tools to to those living in under-represented communities to produce media and tell stories about their lives. 

Comics journalism takes on Kony in 'Army of God'

The "Kony 2012" campaign launched by Invisible Children has brought worldwide attention to Joseph Kony and the LRA--as well as sparking a fierce debate over the role of Internet activism, humanitarian groups, and western interventionism.

Last month Cartoon Movement began publishing Army Of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton, a book-length work of comics journalism about Kony's LRA and people working to stop him. Today we publish another chapter, reconstructing a first-hand account of the LRA raid on the town of Duru in 2008, where Kony's soldiers abducted more children.

Published monthly, each chapter in Army Of God focuses on a different person affected by the LRA, with extensive endnotes and a short essay examining each chapter's theme; child soldiers, rape, and the humanitarian and military efforts to stop it.


Today on our blog, David Axe writes about his meeting with Invisible Children's Adam Finck while reporting from Congo in 2010, and his ultimate support for their project, in Get Kony.

Brian Conley, who has established grassroots news outlets in conflict zones, writes from South By Southwest, where two panels focused on Kony 2012 and who exactly it empowers. “It undermines the agency of Ugandans as implementers of change in their lives,” Conley writes in Hashtag You Can Believe In. “I am left wondering how Ugandans will advocate for themselves in the world of 2013 without Kony.”

Army Of God

Today we launch the first monthly installment of Army Of God, an ambitious 100 page work of comics journalism by David Axe and Tim Hamilton focusing on the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo, the people they've terrorized, and the people fighting back.

Based on Axe's reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, Army Of God  explores the history of the LRA and what is now one of the worst ongoing humanitarian crises in the world. Based on eyewitness accounts from captives and those working to stop the destructive militia, each chapter focuses on a different person and their role in the saga. With stark black and white artwork from Tim Hamilton, each character's chilling account is brought to life, from diplomats to LRA soldiers to the women and children directly impacted by their campaign.

The first chapter recounts the Congo's long history of colonialism, corruption, and strife that have set the stage for the conflict of today.

"The situation in Congo is changing rapidly in some regards, and in others it's not changing at all," says Axe. "Corrupt president Kabila just won re-election, most likely through massive voter fraud. His hold on power will be a stumbling block to improved security. But growing awareness of Congo's problems, and a new U.S. military mission to help fight the LRA, offer some hope."

Army Of God Preview

This month Cartoon Movement will begin serializing Army Of God by David Axe and Tim Hamilton, a non-fiction graphic novel about the Lord's Resistance Army that has terrorized the Congo.

Based on Axe's reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, AoG will explore the history of the LRA with eyewitness accounts from captives and those working to stop the destructive militia. Each chapter will focus on a different character and their role in the saga, from diplomats to LRA soldiers to the women and children they capture.

The first chapter, focusing on the history of the Congo region, will go up on the 15th. Below is a page from the chapter on Joseph Kony, the mysterious and brutal leader of the LRA, and above is the logo designed by Hamilton.