James Nachtwey: Congo

TIME magazine has published a photo essay by James Nachtwey of VII, along with an article by Ben Affleck, an actor, who has traveling to Congo since 2007 to learn, and to report.

Affelck writes:

"The warring parties in the east can be distilled into three main groups: the Congolese army; a breakaway faction composed mainly of Tutsis, led by a former general, Laurent Nkunda; and an outlaw militia, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), led by the same Interahamwe Hutu extremists who committed the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda. "

The accompanying article is here.

TIME magazine surely can do better than frame James Nachtwey's gripping photographs with this hideous slideshow platform. It's also incongruous to have banners and ads fro Samsung cellphones, TurboTax and W Hotels with these photographs of misery and conflict.