#Lra sun

[la5pampy]

Tw: blood (just a bit)

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! :D to the wondeful fic by @bubbiethesaur

I cannot recommend this fic enought, it’s so well written and has got me in a choke hold (Lra sun my beloved<33)

(Ok now I’m sprinting to the new chap)

[bubbiethesaur]

my hand slipped :3

[justydrawz]

Grrr Long road ahead art. First scene that had me pause, and idek what's going on in it. I can't tell if it was Sun being flustered or reliving trauma, or foreshadowing? Idk but it just was so disturbing to me (the hands are not in relation to the moment, they are a part of how I draw LRA Sun B] depending on how the story goes I may stop drawing him like that)

Peach scene I believe in chapter 5

FIC MADE BY @bubbiethesaur ONLY SUN AND MOON FIC I CAN RECOMMEND 😭 IT'S SO GOOD DAWG

[solarsreblogacc]

lra drawings 2!

CW: talking about injuries and a tini bit about rape cuz this drawing means alot. Also spoiler warnings if you haven't read/finished the fic yet!!!

(Again, click to see better quality- spent so long on the texture for this one-)

This one means a few different things

1, moons injuries from the fight like his broken arm and chest plate, and eclipses 'death' (while also being a slight reference to the fact he's a bunch of broken pieces of code)

2, plushie sun's injuries represent rape (being torn open by someone-) and his guilt and sadness

And 3, how you can try to sow them back together all you want, but you'll never be able to fully fix them and how it'll always leave atleast a slight mark on them (representing their trauma and how every injury, both mentally and physically, will leave a mental mark on them even if they get new bodies)

Au/fic is called long road ahead by @bubbiethesaur ! Go read it and show your support and love to them- they deserve it it's a amazing fic I love them all so much I'm so excited for the next chapter (sorry for the double notification bubbie-)

This is part 2/2 of a other post that i split up

[roomselfcontain2]

A very sharp standard low budget cheap affordable income one bedroom house apartment for rent very neat and cool houses available now as pay and parking immediately all major components in this house is working located at rumuekini new layout in port Harcourt city rivers state Nigeria.

[spacenutspod]

The Nova-C lunar lander is seen in the high bay of Intuitive Machines Headquarters in Houston, before it shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for integration with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign.Credit: Intuitive Machines NASA is gearing up for a commercial robotic flight to the Moon under the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. Intuitive Machines will launch its Nova-C lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 14, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission will carry six NASA payloads targeted for the South Polar region. The group of NASA instruments aboard IM-1 will conduct scientific research and demonstrate technologies to help us better understand the Moon’s environment and improve landing precision and safety in the challenging conditions of the lunar south polar region, paving the way for future Artemis astronaut missions. The payloads will collect data on how the plume of engine gasses interacts with the Moon’s surface and kicks up lunar dust, investigate radio astronomy and space weather interactions with the lunar surface, test precision landing technologies, and measure the quantity of liquid propellant in Nova-C propellant tanks in the zero gravity of space. The Nova-C lander will also carry a retroreflector array that will contribute to a network of location markers on the Moon that will be used as a position marker for decades to come The Nova-C lander is targeted to land Thursday, Feb. 22, in a relatively flat and safe area near the Malapert A crater, in the south polar region of the Moon. The six NASA payloads aboard Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission include: LN-1 (Lunar Node 1 Navigation Demonstrator)A small, CubeSat-sized flight hardware experiment that integrates navigation and communication functionality for autonomous navigation to support future surface and orbital operations. Principal investigator: Dr. Evan Anzalone, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center LRA (Laser Retroreflector Array)A collection of eight retroreflectors that enable precision laser ranging, which is a measurement of the distance between an orbiting or landing spacecraft to the reflector on the lander. LRA is a passive optical instrument and will function as a permanent location marker on the Moon for decades to come. Principal investigator: Dr. Xiaoli Sun, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center NDL (Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing)A Lidar-based (Light Detection and Ranging) descent and landing sensor. This instrument operates on the same principles of radar but uses pulses from a laser emitted through three optical telescopes. NDL will measure vehicle velocity (speed and direction) and altitude (distance to surface) with high precision during descent to touchdown. Principal investigator: Dr. Farzin Amzajerdian, NASA’s Langley Research Center RFMG (Radio Frequency Mass Gauge)A rocket propellant gauge used to measure the amount of spacecraft propellant in a low-gravity space environment. Using sensor technology, RFMG will measure the amount, or mass, of cryogenic propellants in Nova-C’s tanks, providing data that can help predict propellant usage on future missions. Principal investigator: Dr. Greg Zimmerli, NASA’s Glenn Research Center ROLSES (Radio-wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the Photoelectron Sheath)Four antennas and a low-frequency radio receiver system designed to study the dynamic radio energy environment near the lunar surface and determine how natural and human-generated activity near the surface interacts with science investigations. It will also detect radio emissions from the Sun, Jupiter, and Earth, as well as dust impacting the surface of the Moon. Principal investigator: Dr. Nat Gopalswamy, NASA Goddard SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies)A suite of four cameras to capture stereo and still images of the dust plume created by the lander’s engine as it begins its descent to the lunar surface until after the engine shuts off. Principal investigator: Michelle Munk, NASA Langley Intuitive Machines is one of 14 vendors eligible to carry NASA payloads to the Moon through the agency’s CLPS initiative, which began in 2018. CLPS is an innovative approach connecting NASA with commercial solutions from American companies to deliver scientific, exploration, and technology payloads to the Moon’s surface and into lunar orbit. Through CLPS, NASA aims to gain new insights into the lunar environment and expand the lunar economy to support future crewed missions under the Artemis campaign. Learn more about NASA’s CLPS initiative at: https://www.nasa.gov/clps/ Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services Artemis Commercial Space Humans In Space

[fsphotovideo]

“Vale Furado”

Vale Furado, Leiria, Portugal.

[fluffallamaful]

Ler!Couch my beloved

🦙🦙🦙…

Afternoon sun stream through the Dream Team’s window, smothering Living Room Armchair (LRA) in a warmth that would give any tickle war an unfair advantage.

A soft thud began the demise of the brown haired boy of the house, elbows scrambling into the soft, newly warmed cushion of LRA, the boy slowly being engulfed into the comfort of light grey fabric. The height of the arms served as a protective barrier, preventing any escape from the sentient being.

It would not be long until the giggler would accept his fate, sinking further and further into the clutches of LRA, under the weight of the older, stronger friend. The two - the blonde and LRA - had made an excellent team in the past, and they would make an excellent team again, on the fine afternoon that the sinking sun provided.

🦙🦙🦙…

[bubbiethesaur]

waaaaaa oh my gosh I’m chomping this stuffing it right in my mouth!! There’s so many lovely details! Ahhh I love the doodles on the car windows and the beauty of the forest at night. Eeee and Moon’s nasa hoodie crop top love it love it! The colors are so lush—it hits just the right vibes of chilling at night in the woods with Moon. You put so much in this and it’s lovely. Truly truly.

And thank you so much for your kind words! Waa! And I’m celebrating so hard that you’re out of an art block! I feel you on that. I was in a 10 year writing slump until I read Solar Lunacy by bamsara, and then boom!

But keep drawing and doing and sharing your art! You’ve got this!

(And many apologies for not seeing this earlier. I’ve been flopping in the burnout cave, but I’m starting to emerge)

I made some long rode ahead fan art( i think of this fic all the time like i have a hard time rereadong it bc i know every story beate like the back of my hand i love it sm) , not an actual acean but more so inspierd by several mainly moon star gazing on the roof of the cabin and him rideing the car. Im a smoker so i thought it be nice to smoke a lil green and let moon star gaze before resting for the night. I love it sm @bubbiethesaur more gushing affter the cut lol .

genuinly think of this fic alot, i didnt put to mutch effert on my face bc look at moon he disereves more. also I drew a car for the first time then coverd most it up lol .this pice is old bc im nervis of posting lol. Any way i love youre fic @bubbiethesaur its awsome and i truly adore youre dipictshons of harsh topics. You did it so well and im just so infatcuated with every vershion of sun and moon but youres spuscifacly jump started me out of a verry long artblock (no jock a 5 year long one i didnt like anything i made and had no insporatshion beside a disier to see sun and moon but i wasent comfadent to actuly try for awhile lol .

[bubbiethesaur]

Fancy

[justydrawz]

Lra doodles 😔 when I say this man helps me so I mean it, like if I ever make a vent he's at the end of it <3 He's helped me sm , I relate to him sm yet so little. More yapping under the cut

Istg when I tell u the fic isn't what it seems guys, it sounds bad but it's so comforting and oddly wholesome before it becomes like this like hell on earth type thing but in a good way. My only problem with the fic has to be Eclispe, I just don't like yn is like 🥰 "but I need the full set" type of deal it annoys me a little but that's really it. Moon is amazing too [won't say much but I did cri] ough

Here is the fic

Lra is by @bubbiethesaur

[187days]

Day Sixty-Two

A few of my GOV seniors had festive turkey socks on this morning, which was so excellent. 

We spent most of our class time discussing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the actions leading up to it: the Mississippi Summer Project, the Selma march, etc... My students had never learned about that history before, so it was awesome- in every sense of the word- to teach it. I went through some of the events of the late sixties, as well, and into the broad push for civil rights for multiple marginalized groups in later decades. I closed by bringing them back to a point Tom White had made, which is that there are threads connecting the events today- and the rhetoric of today (both in favor of and in opposition to civil rights)- to the past. It was a good unit-closing lesson. 

In World, I did something of a transitional lesson. First, I went over the assignment students had been doing about some of the current conflicts in central Africa, and- to my great delight- my quiet class found its voice. Every single one wanted to share something they had learned, and so many of them had questions. Most of the questions focused on the LRA, and the US’ withdrawal from the hunt for Joseph Kony, and a few students even offered their opinions about that. They discussed their opinions with each other. I just stood back and let them. It was a great teacher moment for me. 

Once they were done talking, I went on Google News so we could find out what’s going on in Ethiopia. CNN had a quick video overview of the conflict’s origins, and an article with updates as of this morning about what’s happening. My students were pretty quick to grasp how continued violence there could impact the entire region, and I told them to watch this space. We’ll see what the situation is like the next time we have class together. 

For the next two weeks- the schedule rotation when they’re not in my class- they’ll be drafting papers about the books they’ve been reading (all of which deal with current/recent conflicts, so we’re clearly on a theme here). The last thing I did today was go over the instructions for that and look at a model paper with them. So it was a full day of learning, and if you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you’ll know that’s usually how I roll on days before vacations. 

I did give my students a break outside, at their request, in the last ten minutes or so of class. It was wicked cold, but the sun was out and it was nice to get some fresh air, and it made them happy. So, hey, it’s all good.

And now it is vacation! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

[bubbiethesaur]

Oh my goodness, I totally get what you mean @itsahotminuteinbetween. In fact, I got home as soon as I could and doodled this up.

( LRA ch. 15 spoilers below the cut)

( also this is a silly goofy and op is right)

Life is so much more peaceful when you finally cut off that narcissistic person who’s been tormenting you for years.

[noscorpsaladerive]

LRA Korea Write Up!!!  This is so freaking long and rambly and fangirly but here we go

So obviously spoiler alert, I’ll mark the appropriate parts with trigger warnings, and also I don’t speak any Korean so obviously I missed a lot of stuff

Okay so first off the theater and stage itself were pretty damn small especially in comparison to the 4000 seat Palais des Congrès in Paris but they def made that stage work for them.  The back of the stage was curved in and had steps going all the way around, a screen above the steps with projections, etc, and a couple of entrances for actors.  They had some minimal set pieces, but the coolest part was the like celestial pattern they had on these giant moving screens that they used for a curtain as well as for backdrops for some of the scenes.  Tbh the costumes weren’t like mind blowing like you could tell they didn’t have the biggest budget but they worked and none were so ugly or awful that it took me out of the story.

So the show starts in a similar way with Merlin and the Dragon, but it was really cool bc the part (i assume at least) where the Dragon mentions the king’s son Arthur pops up at the top of the steps!  As the knights are slowly appearing for the tournament and start fighting, Arthur actually sings part of Je me relève???  Which imo is brilliant???? Anyways it gets down to just Meleagant and as he goes up to try and pull Excalibur from the stone, he sings part of Un Nouveau Départ which is also brilliant????  This production did a great job of establishing and maintaining musical themes for characters and i was living for it.

Anyways Arthur does the thing and yay he’s king now but wait side note Han Jisang who played Arthur was SO FUCKING GOOD.  Like he captured Arthur’s transition from a boyish squire to a grown ass adult king so beautifully and wonderfully it was truly incredible.

Okay so now it’s Advienne que pourra time and holy fuck.  Holy f u c k.  Kang Hongseok was the perfect Meleagant.  I’d link it but I’m on mobile but you can see his Advienne que pourra in the King Arthur press call around the nine minute mark and he just fucking k i l l s it.  Also there were no sword dicks in the choreography so it’s automatically better.  And the projection1!!!  They had a sun up from the beginning bc the Dragon had appeared in the sun but it was still up for Meleagant but then during the bridge it’s eclipsed by the moon and it’s like ooooo symbolism for Meleagant’s feelings~~~

Side note i really really really loved the staging of this like so much of it made soooo much more sense than the french production and like I’m attached to the original because obvious reasons but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t‘ve been better.

The training scene with Gauvain was pretty similar as the original.  Merlin introduces the stag and the wolf again, and ngl the dude who plays the wolf has very nice abs so good for him for being motivated to work out like that lol.  Anyways i really liked the staging of Qui suis-je because Arthur still has his existential crisis but Merlin’s explanation of the Grail is less directed at him???  Like Arthur’s still on stage but he’s not listening and is working on training with Merlin’s brothers.  So it’s much less “I know you’re having a hard time but look at this shiny thing!” Than the french one.

They took out the Danse des guerriers battle dance number music but they did still have a dance battle!  At the top of the stairs they had Guenièvre and Léodagant being held prisoner by Méléagant and they showed Mélé like trying to be romantic ish with Guenièvre so establishing that connection was really nice. And Méléagant had a new song????  That was really short????? But i don’t think it matched any of the melodies of his other songs?????? I’m confused but intrigued.

Oooo what was really cool was how they did Arthur asking Meleagant to knight him.  Like in the french one it’s tense but i really felt the tension among the characters tonight it was sooo great oh my god.  But after Meleagant takes the sword, he sings a few lines of Advienne que pourra and then points the sword at Arthur’s neck and idk i just really liked it it was such a nice touch and maybe it was Hong Seok and the other actors reacting to him but there was a true sense of holy fuck no one knows what he’s gonna do next and Arthur had this look on his face like I’m prepared to die if this is my time and ugh i love them all so much ;alkdjfa;dk 

Okay next is Rêver l’impossible.  I liked our Guenièvre but I’d have to see her again to have a more detailed opinion of her lol.  I really loved this scene because one no pregnant handmaidens and two Arthur was being really cute and acting all in love with her and it was adorable and I love it.  Quelque chose de magique was more of the same like Han Jisang fucking killed it as Arthur like he was such a dork in love and I loved it.  And towards the end of the scene Méléagant walks on stage and looks at Guenièvre and Arthur and so you know he knows he’s lost Guinevere.

Un Nouveau Départ was great because Kang Hongseok is great and I love him.  They did have the dancers do body rolls which i found very amusing for some reason idk why a;dlkfajd;lfksd Next was my one complaint about the show and it’s that there was no transition whatsoever between Un Nouveau Départ and Au diable but maybe they had Guenièvre do that lyrically???  Still some sort of musical interlude in between would’ve been nice.  I did l o v e how they did the water for her arrival like she stood at the top of the stairs and they had blue fabric covering all the steps then they pulled it down as she started to walk down and the screen was doing these cool star projections and it was just so pretty.

RAPE TW for this next paragraph

Next was A l’enfant and Tu vas le payer.  Nothing really changed story wise but our Leia was soooo good and was such a great dancer.  And I noticed the lady playing the role of child Morgane in the story had such great expressions and body language and tbh the same can be said for the entire ensemble they were amazing. Anyways our Morgane was really amazing too her expressions were also soooo great and I’m running out of adjectives bc it’s three am a;ldkfjad;l but anyways the way things go down for these two songs is about the same in the french but the staging is different obviously like instead of the party scene it’s mostly Morgane jamming out with the ensemble then they roll Arthur and Guenièvre in on rolling platforms and then Morgane waves her arms bc magic and she does the same movements as Guenièvre so it looks like she’s controlling her which I thought was a cool way to do that.  Afterwards Arthur is obviously very distraught but instead of Merlin being like “you have bigger problems your people are dying” Arthur runs off stage to (hopefully) process what just happened so i appreciate that there’s that moment instead of just rushing on to the next thing.

Next was Guenièvre’s garden and Lancelot’s arrival, which was really cute bc her handmaidens blindfold Kay and have him try to find one of them and he ends up in Lancelot’s arms ;aldkfjsdl;k. And the way Kay tries to protect Guinevere was so freaking cute he kept throwing his arms up to protect her and she kept pushing them down then his arms would pop back up it was so cute ;ladkjfadlk

Si je te promets goes down pretty much the same, but what’s interesting is afterwards Merlin shows up and is like hey your people are dying and that’s when they have Délivre-nous!  They also had ensemble member solos instead of just one singer which i thought worked really well.  And Arthur’s moving among them and he tries to reach out to help them as they fall dying and i just love the staging so much like from the very beginning with the dude who rushes in to tell Arthur Méléagant is holding Guenièvre and her father captive you can just tell Arthur is so concerned about caring for his people and i love him so much ;alkdjf;aldk 

After that song ends Arthur’s like hey we gotta fix this shit so he creates the round table then goes into Je me relève!!  Which was a lil creepy bc that’s the exact same idea i had in my own LRA rewrite and i was like fuck did they find my blog but it fucking works y’all!!!!  And they end Act I on that song and ugh it’s so beautiful i love it

Act II starts out with Dors Morgane dors but it’s not about her mother’s rape anymore, we think she’s talking about her plans for Lancelot, Guenièvre, and Arthur but that is to be confirmed.  They then show ARthur and Lancelot kicking ass and taking names which i liked that it showed Lancelot had buddies besides just crushing on Guinevere lol

Next was A nos vœux sacrés which holy shit y’all.  Holy shit.  Both actors are so freaking good and they both hit high notes at the end of the song and i died and went straight to heaven it was sooooo amazing ;alkdjfa;ldskjfas;d also they did not paint Méléagant up like a war boy they had this like branch like mask thing??? It looked really cool omg

Next Lancelot and Guinevere had a short scene that led into L’amour quel idiot and i loved this staging so much!!!! Like instead of having him sing at their faces after the wedding he’s downstage singing and longing for Guinevere while she and Arthur are standing at the top of the steps getting ready for the wedding and i just love it so much y’all

The wedding scene didn’t have a song but Morgane sung Ce que la vie a fait de moi afterwards and holy fuck y’all i freaking died and went to heaven every time this Morgane hit a high note she was soooooo good y’all.  So fucking good.

I don’t really remember much about le Serment d’Arthur prob bc i know they changed things but language barrier so I’m not 100% sure how it changed rip

Faire comme si was good but I’m so attached to the french staging of that song i still miss it ;alkdfjsad; one thing that i really really loved and preferred in this one was Lancelot and Guinevere don’t really touch??  It’s just longing gazes and at one point they touch hands and Lancelot like freezes like oh fuck she’s touching me i can’t believe it but then Guinevere pulls her hand away and he just leaves his in the same spot for a second like he still can’t believe she touched his hand and ugh i loved it the lack of touching really upped the ante on the pining and it was sooo good a;ldfkjadfkl;

Next was another scene with Morgane and Méléagant where Méléagant starts out being all like you promised me!!! And then I *think* Morgane tells him something like be patient and explains her plan but once again Korean and changes so it’s mostly speculation

But y’all

Y’all

They had Morgane and Méléagant sing Mon combat

Like w h a t

But also y e s

I’m glad they didn’t just leave the song the way it is in the French version bc it doesn’t work very well where it is in the French one???  So I’m so happy they moved things around and tried to make things work better

Next up Merlin peaces out and Arthur?????  Sings a slow reprise?????? Of Quelque chose de magique??????? No clue what he says in the lyrics but i thought it was an interesting melodic choice to bring back in the moment Arthur loses his mentor

So Guinevere gets kidnapped and Kay’s the one who actually realizes she’s gone and who took her but Arthur decides to go after her himself???  Then it switches to Lancelot who’s looking for the Grail and they kept the phrase Wake Up in English bless them but he doesn’t find Guinevere’s handkerchief until partway through the song and Niel (the kid playing Lancelot) was really great??? Like it was so much fun watching him as Lancelot ugh

I don’t remember why but Arthur then has a reprise of Si je te promets jury is still out on what he’s singing about but will keep you posted

Yoooo nos corps à la dérive man.  So. Good.  I’m so in love with Hong Seok’s Méléagant he’s so great and i just ;lakdjf;alkdjfd but the set was so cool they had like all these white ribbons???  That Guinevere was attached to??? Which sounds weird but it was like part spider web effect part almost shattered mirror effect????  That’s not explaining it well but it looked really cool and avant garde ish and there was a significantly fewer number of random creepy skeleton projections so i was here for it

Major difference tho Lancelot shows up ready to throw down except he gets his ass kicked and is seriously injured???  And Arthur shows up but he just listens at first so I think that’s when he really figures out what’s up between Lancelot and Guinevere but then Arthur steps in and kills Méléagant (who sings a reprise of Un Nouveau Départ before being carried off into the afterlife) (rip in peace).  Arthur then leaves Guinevere and Lancelot alone while the latter dies and they sing a really sad reprise of L’amour quel idiot :(((( my son dying meant that Il est temps got cut but like they added soo many reprises and things it makes sense that they’d have to cut at least one song but still sad :(

Next Arthur talks with Morgane and I’m not entirely sure what was happening but it seemed like she was having a breakdown because of what happened and what she did to Arthur and Vanessa said that he said something like “Don’t turn into our mother” or something like that but she breaks down and spirits herself away while she and Arthur sing a reprise of Dors Morgane dors

Then it’s Tout est joué and Merlin is standing on the back of the steps while Arthur is in front of the closed screen so it was nice to have that kind of physical barrier present on stage to further emphasize that Merlin’s not gonna be helpful bc he’s now separated from Arthur rip

Next up was Auprès d’un autre which involved a lot less yelling and shit then the French version and holy shit Han Jisang fucking killed it (again) he was sooo great but Arthur lets Guenièvre go partway through the song and so the show ends with him by himself holding up Excalibur

At curtain call they sang some of Je me relève (i think) again and it was cute esp bc at the end everyone was holding a dramatic pose except Han Jisang was just quietly bopping and jamming to the instrumental outro by himself so everyone is dead still except Arthur who was just bopping along it was so cute ;alkdjf;alskdjf

Anyways it was amazing and they seemed to make changes to make the story make more sense which bless them for doing it but i loved it so much and i need to see it like a million more times it was so good a;ldskfjas;ldkfjads;lkfjasd;k

[worklabournewsresearch]

Proposed Changes to Ontario's Employment and Labour Laws

“Seven days after releasing a report examining potential changes to workplace laws, the Government of Ontario has announced the first round of reforms based on that report. ... Legislation is to be introduced in the Fall of 2017, taking effect at various times in 2018 and 2019.  There are many changes to the Employment Standards Act (“ESA”), the most significant of-which target the temporary personnel industry. The other major reforms to be enacted are within the Labour Relations Act (“LRA”).  Those changes will make it much easier for non-unionized employees to unionize, and for unions to stay in place.”  

“Significant ESA Changes:

The minimum wage will rise from $11.40 hourly to $14 in 2018, and to $15 in 2019.

Distinctions between wage rates among part-time, casual, temporary, seasonal and full-time workers will be eliminated. A principle of “equal pay for equal work” will apply.  Wage differentials would be legal only based on seniority, merit, productivity or “other factors” to be determined.

Temporary help agency employees will be entitled to the same wages as the permanent employees at workplaces where they are temporarily assigned.  They will also be entitled to one week’s notice of termination (or pay in lieu) of assignments lasting 3 months or longer.

Vacation pay will increase to 3 weeks (a 50% increase) for employees with five years’ or more tenure.

Independent contractors: individuals working for an employer will be presumed to be employees, unless the employer can prove that they are independent contractors.

Leaves: Personal emergency leave (PEL) would be available in all workplaces, of any size and would not be subject to a “sick note.”  More PEL days would be available, 2 with pay. Family medical leave would be increased to 27 weeks in a 52 week period. Child bereavement and disappearance leave of 104 weeks would be created.

Easier employee complaints without notice to employers, and non-compliance penalties would be increased modestly.

Public shaming of employers found to have violated the ESA, by publication of their names, offenses and fines.”

“Significant LRA Changes

Easy union access to employee information: where a union can prove 20% support in its proposed bargaining unit, it can obtain employee lists and other information.

Card-based certification (no employee votes) in temporary help, building services, home care and community services industries.

Off-site voting, including telephone and electronic voting, on whether to unionize.

Automatic “remedial” certification if an employer is found to have contravened the Act.

“Just cause protection” during the period between certification and a first contract, and during the period between the legal strike date and a new collective agreement, an employer could not dismiss an employee without just cause.

Successor rights in the building services industry (cleaning, maintenance, security, etc) unions would have successor rights – automatically transferring to whatever company assumes a contract.  

Successor rights when bidding for government contracts: the government could prescribe successor rights in situations where employers bid on “publicly funded contracted services.”

Bargaining unit consolidation: aping federal provisions, the Ontario Labour Relations Board would be empowered to restructure existing bargaining units (combining units, and so on).

Post-strike reinstatement: there would be no time limit on when a striking worker could apply to be reinstated, after a strike.”

“The Government plans to hire up to 175 more people as enforcement officers.”

Growling WLG, May 30, 2017 “Ontario Announces Significant Workplace Law Reforms,” by David K. Law

“Notably, there is no proposed change to the definition of ‘employee’ to include a ‘dependent contractor.’ Nor is there any proposed change to the exemption for managers and supervisors, although in fall 2017 the Ministry will conduct a review of ESA exemptions and special industry rules, including consultation with affected stakeholders.”

“At this time, the government has not proposed extending the LRA to any group currently exempted. However, the Ministry of Labour will engage in a further consultation process to review the special advisors’ recommendation to remove exclusions under the LRA, taking into account ongoing litigation.”

Norton Rose Fullbright, May 30, 2017: “Ontario Government intends to introduce proposed legislation, The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017,” by Rhonda Shirreff and John Mastoras

Legislative Assembly of Ontario, June 1, 2017: Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (39 pages, PDF)

Ontario Newsroom, May 30, 2017: “Proposed Changes to Ontario's Employment and Labour Laws”

CityNews, May 30, 2017: “Highlights of Ontario's planned changes to labour laws”

CBC News, May 30, 2017: “Ontario becomes 2nd province to go ahead with $15 an hour minimum wage”

Baker Mackenzie, May 31, 2017: “Ontario Responds Quickly to Strengthen ESA,” by Jordan Kirkness and Susan MacMillan

Baker Mackenzie, May 31, 2017: “Ontario Set to Make Significant Changes to Labour Relations Act,” by Jordan Kirkness and Susan MacMillan

Ogletree Deakins, May 30, 2017: “Ontario Government Announces Sweeping Employment and Labour Law Changes,” by Matthew E. McCarthy and Michael Comartin

Borden Ladner Gervais, May 30, 2017: “Ontario Government Will Proceed With Major Changes To Employment and Labour Laws,” by Clifford J. Hart, Kate Dearden, and Bethan Dinning

Stewart McKelvey, May 30, 2017: “Proposed Reform of Ontario’s Labour and Employment Statutes,” by Mark Tector and Annie Gray

Osler, May 31, 2017: “Ontario government employment proposals affect business planning and budgets,” by Colin Kelly and Jason Hanson        

Analyses

Global News, May 30, 2017: “Who wins and who loses in Ontario’s decision to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour?” by Adam Miller

CBC News, May 30, 2017: “How a $15 minimum wage would affect Ontario,” by Mike Crawley

TVO, May 30, 2017: “Labour laws changes are good politics — and (mostly) good policy, too,” by John Michael McGrath

Rabble, May 30, 2017: Raising minimum wage good for business growth, advocates say,” by Meagan Gillmore

The Globe and Mail, May 30, 2017: “Ontario’s minimum wage hike raises questions over labour market impact” (SUBSCRIBERS ONLY) by Rachelle Younglai

The Toronto Star, May 31, 2017: “Why politics drives a minimum wage wedge: Cohn,” by Martin Regg Cohn

The Globe and Mail, June 1, 2017: “How businesses can handle the hikes in minimum wage,” by Janet Candido

The Toronto Star, May 30, 2017: “Kathleen Wynne shows there’s nothing inevitable about precarious labour: Editorial”

The Toronto Star, May 30, 2017: “Kathleen Wynne’s precarious workplace reforms fall painfully short: Walkom,” by Thomas Walkom

Labour Responses

Canadian Labour Congress, May 30, 2017: “$15 minimum wage and fairer employment coming to Ontario”

Ontario Federation of Labour, May 20, 2017: “$15-dollar minimum wage in 2019 a win for Ontario workers, must be followed by legislation to guarantee decent work as well as decent pay, says OFL”

Canadian Union of Public Employees, May 30, 2017: “Workplace changes are far from restoring balance for workers in Ontario”

National Union of Public and General Employees, May 31, 2017: “Important proposed changes to provincial labour laws”

Canadian Media Guild, May 31, 2017: “Ontario reforms its labour laws, but keeps many of us on hold“

United Steelworkers. May 31, 2017: “Ontario’s Government Must Aim Higher”

Bay Today, May 31, 2017: “Labour Council praises Wynne for minimum wage increase,” by Chris Dawson

Business Responses

Ontario Chamber of Commerce, May 30, 2017: “Ontario Deserves Evidence Based Reform: Statement on Ontario’s Fair Workplaces Plan”

Ontario Chamber of Commerce, May 30, 2017: Keep Ontario Working Coalition: Ontario Deserves Evidence-Based Reform

Ontario Federation of Agriculture, May 31, 2017: “Wage increase and proposed labour changes will impact agri-food industry (2017)”

Sault Online, May 30, 2017: “Sault Chamber Reacts to $15 minimum wage”

Timmins Today, May 31, 2017: “Potential changes could be costly, says Timmins Chamber”

The Peterborough Examiner, May 30, 2017: “Peterborough Chamber of Commerce fears job losses over Ontario's plan for $15 minimum wage, employment standards reforms”

The Hamilton Spectator, May 31, 2017: “Ontario minimum wage hike ‘really good day for little guy,'" by Allison Jones

Reaction Coverage

The Globe and Mail, May 30, 2017: “Cheers, criticism greet Ontario plan to raise minimum wage to $15,” by Josh O’Kane and Justin Giovannetti

CBC News, May 31, 2017: “Ontario's minimum wage raise a 'small business killer,' say critics, but for many it means feeling 'human,'” by Shanifa Nasser

Canadian Manufacturing, May 31, 2017: “Overhaul of Ontario labour laws leave both business, worker groups unhappy”

Owen Sound Sun Times, May 31, 2017: “Mixed reviews locally for proposed minimum wage hike,” by Denis Langlois

[cstesttaken]

Kony 2017: From Guerrilla Marketing to Guerrilla Warfare

DUNGU, Democratic Republic of the Congo — The sun was disappearing behind hills thick with kapok trees when the Lord’s Resistance Army attacked a village near Masombo, just south of the South Sudanese border. Men and boys fled into the bush, afraid that the notorious dreadlocked gunmen might abduct them and force them to fight. The rebels, who once battled the Ugandan government but now mostly eek out a living by raiding villages in central Africa, herded the women into a thatched hut before ransacking their homes of food, clothes, and money. Then they melted back into the jungle.

Masombo is among the most isolated and remote places on Earth. A clutch of mud-thatch huts three hours by motorbike from the nearest Congolese town, it lacks cellular coverage and even the most rudimentary government services. Yet a detailed account of the assault last August — down to a tally of the peanuts and corn the LRA fighters had stolen — would arrive in the email inboxes of American military officers by dinnertime two days later.

It has been nearly five years since the San Diego-based NGO Invisible Children uploaded “Kony 2012” onto YouTube and watched it rack up more than 120 million views in a single week. The 30-minute viral video sought to make the LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, and his crimes “famous” among young Americans. It was swiftly condemned for oversimplifying the conflict, and critics denounced the group’s co-founder, Jason Russell, as suffering from “white savior complex.” He had a public mental breakdown 10 days later, and his organization soon faded from view.

Since then, Invisible Children has quietly, but profoundly, transformed itself. With seed funding from a Texas hedge fund that financed a broader military effort against the LRA, it now runs a daring program to supply civilians with high-frequency radios to track rebel movements across a 61,000-square-mile expanse of Congo and the Central African Republic. The group cooperates closely with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), and United Nations peacekeepers, all of whom rely on the radio program’s data in the hunt for Kony.

Once dismissed as a group of amateur click-activists, Invisible Children is now on the front line of a covert war against the LRA. In its latest incarnation, the group has veered even further from standard humanitarian protocol, pioneering a controversial approach to humanitarian aid that treats intelligence gathering as a core objective and military force as a legitimate avenue of justice. Invisible Children sees this new approach as a welcome alternative to years of failed efforts to catch a bloodthirsty killer. Critics say the group may be putting many more people at far greater risk — not just its employees, but the very people it aims to help.

Invisible Children's Congolese headquarters sits in the center of Dungu, just steps from a United Nations peacekeeping outpost. The LRA attacked Dungu in 2008, killing three Congolese soldiers and abducting at least more than 50 children, according to Human Rights Watch. (Photo credit: DAVID GAUVEY HERBERT for Foreign Policy)

In August, I spent a week in Dungu, the base of Invisible Children’s radio operations in Congo. The LRA attacked the city in 2008, briefly terrorized the population, then fanned out into the surrounding wilderness. International agencies followed in their wake and, for a time, turned Dungu into something of an NGO boomtown. Today, U.N. peacekeepers from Morocco still man a small base on the grounds of a crumbling Belgian colonial-era chateau. Concertina wire rings the U.N. compound across the street, where visitors can rent enclosed beds advertised as dormitory pods for $50 a night. Unless you charter a plane or hitch a ride on a military transport, you must arrive in Dungu by sport utility vehicle, a spine-rattling 10-hour journey on pockmarked dirt roads through one of the poorest, most isolated regions of Africa.

Tucked into a small, darkened room at the Invisible Children compound is “Charly Papa Base.” That’s the code name for the switchboard that receives reports from volunteer operators at 36 radio stations scattered across a vast swath of impassable Congolese savannah and jungle and turns them into actionable intelligence. Joseph, a playful 30-year-old who favors cowboy suits and dashikis, commands the base and two fellow operators, Floribert and Ferdinand. (The last names of Invisible Children’s local radio operators have been removed to protect their safety.) Far-flung volunteers check in twice a day and report any LRA activity in Zande, Lingala, and French. Invisible Children runs a separate, smaller radio network across the border in the Central African Republic, where the LRA is also active.

Floribert conducts the afternoon ronde, checking in with a far-flung volunteer operator. (Photo credit: DAVID GAUVEY HERBERT for Foreign Policy)

On my first day in Dungu, Floribert began the morning ronde. He thumbed the handset’s call button and greeted the operators on the other end by their call signs. Crackling, staticky voices replied with the same greeting: “Bonjour, Papa!”

There was news from a radio station code-named “Charly November,” which began reporting the attack on the village near Masombo two days prior. Floribert and Ferdinand, a former seminarian with a friar’s plump cheeks, interrogated the faraway volunteer operator, asking for ever-more-specific details. The Dungu operators weren’t even sure whereMasombo was located. The maps at the office didn’t show the town anywhere; all they had was a crude drawing sketched from memory by Prosper, the office engineer who remembered the area from 20 years of peddling goods around the region by bicycle and motorbike. The three men huddled around the radio receiver for two hours, scratchy voices filling the darkened room with the grim details of the attack.

As I sat listening, I looked out the office’s narrow window. In the courtyard was a wall decorated with murals drawn by recently returned child soldiers — blood, gore, and remarkably accurate depictions of AK-47s, heavy machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades. It was a stark reminder that the LRA’s campaign of terror, in which it has abducted 30,000 child soldiers and killed more than 100,000 civilians since its founding in northern Uganda in the late-1980s, is not yet finished.

Left: Pauline Zerla visits the offices of Commission Diocésaine pour la Justice et la Paix, a nonprofit in Dungu that helps Invisible Children run the early warning network. Right: Prosper, the office engineer, reviews the site of a recent attack with Camille Marie-Regnault. (Photo credit: DAVID GAUVEY HERBERT for Foreign Policy)

The impetus for Invisible Children’s radio network was a massacre in northeastern Congo in December 2009 in which the LRA killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children. The four-day rampage was brutal, even by LRA standards: Rebels tied victims to trees and crushed their skulls with axes and burned to death a 3-year-old girl.

But the region is so isolated that details of the attacks took more than three months to emerge; Human Rights Watch published the first comprehensive account in March 2010. Shannon Sedgwick Davis, the CEO of Bridgeway Foundation, the charitable arm of a Texas hedge fund that donates half of its after-tax profits to organizations working to end genocide, learned about them only after speaking with Ida Sawyer, the Human Rights Watch researcher who wrote the report. Davis asked what her foundation could do to help combat the LRA. “Two things kept coming up,” Davis said of her conversation with Sawyer and later consultations with State Department officials: better “communications and training” for soldiers and civilians on the front lines.

She set to work improving both. Davis says that she and Laren Poole, one of the co-founders of Invisible Children, which she persuaded to take over an existing radio network run by a Catholic priest, had become “aligned in thinking that our more traditional approaches to the LRA were not having the results we had hoped.” Davis initially bankrolled Invisible Children’s radio network as a village-to-village warning system, but it quickly began doubling as an intelligence arm for the UPDF and its partners. (Bridgeway gave Invisible Children grants totaling $135,000 to get the network off the ground.)

By March 2010, Bridgeway was also financing what looked increasingly like a private war against the LRA — and Invisible Children’s fingerprints were evident on these more overtly militaristic initiatives as well. When Davis began searching for military contractors to train Ugandan troops hunting for Kony, Poole put forward the name of Eeben Barlow, a veteran of the Civil Cooperation Bureau, South Africa’s apartheid-era covert government military unit that carried out assassinations. After the end of apartheid, Barlow had earned some renown as founder of the private military contractor Executive Outcomes, which fought in civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola and was fictionalized in the 2006 film “Blood Diamond.” Davis hit it off with Barlow and, between March 2011 and January 2012, his new company, STTEP International, trained hundreds of Ugandan troops.

To help the UPDF chase Kony across the rugged central African bush, Davis also contracted with a private air transit company to provide the Ugandans with a bush plane and Bell helicopter for their exclusive use. Even after President Barack Obama ordered roughly 100 American military advisors and air support to the region in October 2011, Ugandan military officers told me that they still preferred Bridgeway’s plane and helicopter, which required no waiting period or oversight. Bridgeway spent roughly $12 million on its counter-LRA programs between 2010 and 2015, Davis told me, adding that it was the first time she had publicly stated that figure.

To manage the radio network, Invisible Children hired Camille Marie-Regnault, from France, and Pauline Zerla, a Belgian with a family connection to the region: Her mother was born in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) to a bureaucrat in the Belgian Congo colonial administration.

Marie-Regnault, 26, and Zerla, 30, are upbeat and tireless when we meet, often working 14-hour days in the field. Zerla in particular exudes a bubbly naiveté that might seem familiar to Invisible Children’s critics. As we drove along the dangerous “Route Quatre” from the Congolese border to Dungu, our sport utility vehicle became stuck in a 3-foot-deep pool of mud. The enormous Invisible Children decal remained visible on the truck’s hood as we spun our wheels in vain. I asked what would happen if the LRA came upon us now.

“I’ve always wondered about that,” Zerla said, and then cried in a singsong voice: “They will defect, and we will take them home!”

Zerla and Marie-Regnault have worked hard to increase cooperation with troops working to rout the LRA from the region, which by the time the two were hired in 2014 included Ugandan and Congolese soldiers, U.N. peacekeepers, and U.S. military advisors. The nonprofit’s alliance with the U.S. military in particular is extraordinary. Invisible Children staff meet frequently with AFRICOM leaders in Dungu. Sean Poole, the director of programs at the NGO (and no relation to Laren), has traveled to Stuttgart, Germany, where AFRICOM is based. When we first spoke last April, Sean had just met with American military advisors in the Central African Republic who told him that more than 70 percent of their LRA intelligence came from Invisible Children’s early-warning network.

AFRICOM officers have asked to tune into daily calls directly. Invisible Children has refused, though it would not be difficult for the U.S. military — or anyone else — to listen in anyway. Several of the NGO’s employees bristled when I called their work intelligence-gathering. They noted that in addition to aiding the military effort, the radio network warns villagers about recent violence in their areas and helps keep American policymakers focused on the LRA by gathering data that highlights the rebel group’s continuing threat.

An AFRICOM spokesman declined to speak with me during my visit to Dungu. I had more luck with Lt. Col. Islam Arif, a Bangladeshi officer tasked at the time to the U.N. peacekeeping mission’s Joint Intelligence and Operations Center (JIOC) when I arrived unannounced at his air-conditioned trailer at the U.N. airbase. Arif explained that the early-warning network is integral to his intelligence gathering. Invisible Children is the only NGO invited to his weekly intelligence meetings. “With Invisible Children we are” and made a fist with his hand. JIOC collaborates with AFRICOM and the Ugandan and Congolese troops hunting Kony. As our interview wrapped up, Marie-Regnault entered the office, and Arif gave her a double-cheek kiss.

The military alliance is just as tight across the border in Obo, an even more remote settlement in the Central African Republic that is essentially a 3-mile dirt road connecting the Ugandan military base on one end and the AFRICOM and U.N. bases on the other. Between 2011 and 2014, U.S. warplanes based in Obo air-dropped defection pamphlets over the Central African savannah with “come home” messages designed by Invisible Children, according to Sean Poole. (He added that the majority of the NGO’s leaflet air drops were done independently from the U.S. military.) Invisible Children’s compound sits beside a shantytown of crude huts that house Ugandan troops. At night the front yard glows with the smartphone screens of soldiers trying to poach their wireless internet. Zerla was posted in Obo for two years, and during that time she was known to sprint across the airfield to alert Ugandan officers about actionable intelligence.

Invisible Children sees nothing remarkable about its military cooperation. But its approach contrasts sharply with other nonprofits in the region. For example, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a Baltimore-based nonprofit, runs a parallel network of nearly 100 radios in the region. Like Invisible Children, CRS conducts twice-daily calls with villages in its network. CRS, however, does not share its data directly with the U.S. military.

“We will not expose the communities to the risk of being perceived to be collaborating with the military,” said Michael Stulman, a Senegal-based press officer for the nonprofit, by email.

The American Red Cross has long set the industry standard for independence from armed actors. While the Red Cross works with governments, militaries, and rebel groups to provide emergency medical services, a spokeswoman told me, it enforces a policy of neutrality in war zones. “In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all,” Jenelle Eli, a spokeswoman, wrote in an email, “we may not take sides in hostilities.” The NGO-military firewall has cracked in recent years, with several humanitarian espionage operations directed and funded by the U.S. government coming to light. In 2015, for instance, The Intercept revealed that the Pentagon had long used an evangelical Christian NGO to spy inside North Korea. But the case of Invisible Children remains unique — both for the group’s self-initiated collaboration and its willingness to speak openly about it.

Sean Poole, the NGO’s director of programs, pushes back hard against the notion that Invisible Children was central to Bridgeway’s controversial military effort. In an email, he noted that of the $9 million Invisible Children has spent on the early-warning network, only about 5 percent has come from Bridgeway. But the two organizations are linked by more than just financing: Not only did Invisible Children’s co-founder suggest that Bridgeway hire Eeben Barlow’s mercenary outfit to train the UPDF, Laren Poole later traveled with Davis and Barlow to Kampala to meet with a Ugandan general to close the deal. Later, he took a job at Bridgeway to help coordinate the effort. Adam Finck, another longtime Invisible Children employee who remains on the NGO’s board, joined Bridgeway in 2014 to coordinate an LRA defection-messaging program that included air-dropping pamphlets over central Africa.

Left: Joseph, right, helps lead a training for volunteer operators who near Garamba National Park. Rangers want to use Invisible Children's radio network to track poachers. Right: A Congolese soldier on a counter-LRA patrol north of Dungu. (Photo credit: DAVID GAUVEY HERBERT for Foreign Policy)

Invisible Children is expanding its cooperation with armed actors who want access to its valuable intelligence network. One day during my visit, the nonprofit hosted a workshop for radio operators living around Congo’s Garamba National Park to teach them to identify poachers, some of whom are LRA fighters harvesting ivory, which they later trade to Sudanese middlemen for supplies. The park recently created an intelligence unit, led by a French army veteran, to coordinate the movements of 150 rangers armed with AK-47s and a Bell helicopter. In a new partnership, Invisible Children is feeding information to park rangers on poachers’ movements. Unlike the LRA, which has become less violent in recent years as it seeks to keep a low profile, poachers armed with assault rifles have become more aggressive. Last April, just a few months before my visit, poachers murdered three rangers during a shootout in the park.

I dipped out of the training session to join the afternoon radio call. Floribert, the operator on duty, was receiving more news from Masombo, the border village attacked a few days before. While looting a hut earlier in the week, LRA fighters had found a uniform belonging to a villager who worked as a park ranger. They were now stalking his home, hoping to assassinate him. The ranger had fled with his family.

There was non-LRA news too. A radio operator in Bangadi reported that a pregnant woman had had an emergency cesarean section the night before. Her baby had died, and she had just passed away that morning. Her father-in-law was in Dungu visiting family, and he didn’t have a cell phone. Could someone notify him? Prosper, the 43-year-old network engineer, has a brow perpetually knitted in concentration. He seemed an appropriate bearer of the bad news.

Prosper and I drove his motorcycle to a nearby boardinghouse where the deceased woman’s father-in-law was staying. When we arrived, the landlord told us we were too late. The man had left for Bangadi that morning, as scheduled. He was on the back of a motorcycle, bouncing home. The road was bad. It would be five or six more hours before he learned that his daughter-in-law and grandchild were dead.

Isolated communities in Congo and the Central African Republic are desperate for more radios, which are often the only lifelines to the outside world. Villages use them to exchange news about commodity prices, request medical help, and keep in touch with family. In the fall of 2015, the mayor of a remote Central African village biked 70 miles over two days to reach the town of Sam Ouandja to request that Invisible Children install a radio in his community. Some villages also earn money by charging roving traders a few Congolese francs to make calls.

The men and women who volunteer as operators are a diverse lot, from Baudouin, a balding ex-park ranger with leopard-print Wellingtons, to Ambroise, a curious 23-year-old who has operated his village’s radio since he was 18. While he grumbled about the lack of pay from Invisible Children, Ambroise likes that the job broadens his horizons. Whatever their complaints, volunteer operators — and, indeed, many Congolese in this neglected region — are grateful to Invisible Children for providing connectivity in a corner of the country almost devoid of social services. But I sensed that operators were only partially aware of the risk they were running by becoming veritable intelligence operatives.

“There’s a very clear pattern of the LRA targeting civilians collaborating with security forces,” said Matthew Green, the author of The Wizard of the Nile, a 2008 book on the LRA, who briefly met Kony during failed peace talks in 2006. “And that vengeance comes in the form of mutilations and killings.”

Invisible Children clothes its operators in T-shirts with a logo — a handset surrounded by emanating radio waves — emblazoned on the chest. The longer I stared at it, the more it resembled a bull’s-eye.

Zerla and Marie-Regnault, the managers of Invisible Children’s field programs, insist that operators are in minimal danger: Radio frequencies are secret, and they have code words and security protocols.

On my last full day in Dungu, I drove with two operators to check on a malfunctioning radio in Duru, a town some 50 miles away, near the South Sudanese border. On the way back, we stopped in a flyspeck village with a high-frequency radio operated by Catholic Relief Services. A Congolese army officer was inside using the radio, which would be against Invisible Children protocol. I asked the operator if the army listens to his daily calls. Absolutely not, he replied. They do not have our frequency.

A few kilometers down the road, I stopped at several Congolese army checkpoints, which are usually just two or three soldiers living in thatched huts and farming small plots to feed themselves. The checkpoints appear every few miles or so marked by dummies dressed in helmet and fatigues, both to alert drivers and sometimes draw LRA fire as soldiers beat a retreat. At the second checkpoint, I introduced myself, handed out cigarettes to lighten the mood, and asked the Congolese soldiers if they ever listened in to the CRS radio network.

“Every day!” an officer cried in French. He puffed on his cigarette and then recited the two daily call times.

A Congolese army officer uses a Catholic Relief Services radio, a practice that Invisible Children says it does not allow. (Photo credit: DAVID GAUVEY HERBERT for Foreign Policy)

The four-digit frequency, which is displayed prominently on a radio’s digital handset, is all the Congolese military would need to eavesdrop on Invisible Children as well. That’s a problem, given that their operators routinely report local soldiers for theft and rape — and the LRA for far worse. Kony himself may be dialing into the twice-daily rondes for all Invisible Children knows: He uses high-frequency radios to direct his scattered fighters from the safety of Sudan, where he is believed to have taken refuge some 450 miles away. There is no way to know who is on the line.

Zerla told me that no operator had ever been targeted for violence, a claim that Invisible Children’s local staff contradicted. When I visited Obo, Miller Moukpidie, whose job involves trying to get LRA fighters to defect, told me that a few months prior, an operator in Rafai, a town in the Central African Republic that is controlled by ex-Séléka rebels who briefly toppled the central government there in 2013, reported an LRA attack. American and Ugandan troops responded within a few hours; when they left, the rebels running the village beat the operator, believing that he was collaborating with the LRA (he was not) and the U.S. military (he was). Sean Poole later told me that he had no record of an assault, although he acknowledged that Invisible Children did organize a workshop to “defuse these tensions” between ex-Séléka rebels and community members.

Moukpidie also told me that several years ago, the LRA raided the Central African village of Kpabou. Gunmen asked if anyone had a phone, and residents immediately led them to the home of an Invisible Children operator with a Thuraya satellite phone, which the group distributes in some areas of the Central African Republic where installing a high-frequency radio is too difficult — or where it might attract the wrong attention. LRA gunmen stole the phone and held the operator captive for a week. Sean Poole said he had no record of such an attack, although he did point to a December 2014 attack on Kpabou that was reported by satellite phone in which the LRA abducted 10 civilians and stole a high-frequency radio battery for its own use.

“There will always be risks,” Zerla told me in her office one night. But, of course, it is not Invisible Children’s Western staff taking them. Last year, a community liaison for the CRS radio network was murdered by the LRA.

I first asked Zerla about her relationship with the U.S. and Ugandan militaries a few hours after we crossed the Congolese frontier. “You don’t ask that many questions because you don’t need to know,” she told me cheerfully. A week later, I pressed her again on this point. We were eating lunch on the terrace behind Invisible Children’s offices in Obo. I asked if she was comfortable being in the dark about how military commanders used the intelligence she provided.

“To me, we don’t help the U.S. military or the UPDF. We help the mission,” she said, meaning the shared goal of countering the LRA. “Anything that would hurt someone we don’t share.”

But since Invisible Children doesn’t know how exactly the information is being used, isn’t it possible that someone could get hurt, I asked.

“I think it’s possible,” she replied, drawing out the middle of the word.

She became increasingly frustrated with my questions and began to punctuate her answers with “Do you understand?” and a patronizing squint, as if I were a particularly dense student failing to grasp a simple math problem. I continued to ask probing questions, and she became so agitated that she stood up from the table, walked over, and loomed above me.

“Invisible Children is the LRA,” she said. “That’s what we do. That’s the only thing we do.” She glowered at me and added: “I have to go to work now.”

The Bridgeway Foundation’s support for Invisible Children continues; it donated nearly $500,000 to Invisible Children and The Resolve, a partner organization that operates the public LRA Crisis Tracker website, over the last two years. But the foundation no longer provides air support and military training to the UPDF, and since 2015, Bridgeway has considered its counter-LRA work mostly finished.

“We evaluated the situation,” Davis told me, “and made the hard decision that we were going to step back and look for what next area we would do funding in.”

Invisible Children wants to stay in the region for as long as possible. The group’s data, gathered over the radio network, shows an uptick in violence: The LRA abducted 722 people and killed 21 last year, up from 603 and 11, respectively, in 2015. But Invisible Children is running out of money; spending fell from $15.5 million in 2013, when the group was flush with cash, to $2 million last year. It is already one of the last NGOs in Dungu. The radios will remain, an emergency hotline to which anyone can listen and no one will respond.

Last summer, the Ugandan military announced that it would draw down its counter-LRA deployment. Brig. Kayanja Muhanga, who was preparing to redeploy to Mogadishu, told me that the number of Kony’s fighters was dwindling, and other hotspots more central to Uganda’s national interests — like Somalia and South Sudan — now required greater attention, which is why the UPDF considers its mission in central Africa more or less complete. Meanwhile, the election of President Donald Trump foreshadows the end of America’s $100-million-a-year anti-Kony advisory effort as well: After the election, the president-elect’s transition team circulated a four-page list of Africa-related questions around the State Department. “The LRA has never attacked U.S. interests,” it stated. “Why do we care? Is it worth the huge cash outlays?”

“The UPDF is leaving,” said Jolly Okot, a former LRA abductee whose story initially inspired Invisible Children’s founders, when I visited her at her office in Gulu, Uganda. “The U.S. is not going to help. The Congolese army is worse than nothing at all. What will happen to those operators? Think about it.”

On my last day in Dungu, the plane taking us to Obo arrived an hour early. A gardener loaded our bags into a Land Cruiser, and I made my farewells. I promised to write Joseph on WhatsApp. He smiled and retreated into the darkened radio room to join his colleagues. The operators expected more bad news from Masombo, the village attacked just before I arrived — and where LRA gunmen had shot a motorcycle passenger just a day earlier. It was 10 a.m., still several hours until the afternoon radio call.

We drove through Dungu, past the rotting, rusted signs of long-departed NGOs, to a grassy airstrip maintained by the local Catholic diocese. I climbed into the co-pilot’s seat of a Cessna Caravan 208. It is the same model aircraft that Invisible Children will likely charter when the money runs out, the adventure must end, and Zerla, Marie-Regnault, and the other Western employees leave Dungu for good. We sprinted down the runway, leaned back, and wobbled skyward. Beneath us, a jungle of triumphs and horrors unfolded unseen. Babies lived. Mothers died. Rice was harvested. Dreadlocked gunmen emerged from waist-high elephant grass, fingers pressed to their lips. Somewhere below, the operators sat in darkness, listening to static.

Reporting for this piece was facilitated by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Editor’s Note: In the above photographs, the faces of some Invisible Children staff members and operators have been obscured to protect their identities.

Source

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/02/kony-2017-from-guerilla-marketing-to-guerilla-warfare-invisible-children-africa/