Category: Solidarity Actions
Side by side with FGWM in Myanmar (fundraising)
Goal: 15 000 EUR by August 31st 2023 to enable comrades of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) to continue their work!
Below you will find more details on the FGWM itself as well as a message from a garment factory worker.
fundraising page: firefund.net ☆ website: fgwm-solidarity.org ☆ solidarity shirts: dnamerch.de
worker message (ဗမာ) ☆ background info ☆ what can I do?
contact: info@fgwm-solidarity.org
Message from a garment factory worker organised with FGWM:
Hello, Mingalarbar. I’m reaching out to seek assistance from fellow members of international unions. I work in the garment industry and hold a leadership role within the union. I’m a part of both the Federation of General Workers (FGWM) and a leading position in a garment factory’s union. These unions have been actively combating labor exploitation and advocating for workers’ rights through united efforts. The recent military coup has turned our workplaces into unbearable environments.
message by a factory worker shared on August 23rd, 2023
Under the leadership of FGWM, our trade unions initiated campaigns (inside factories) against the military dictatorship on February 5, 2021, immediately after the coup. On February 6, our union federation, FGWM became the pioneering group to voice opposition against the military rule in Yangon. Unfortunately, this led to their identification and subsequent capture by the military. Many workers have also become jobless as they fled their workplaces to escape danger. Some have been imprisoned due to the military’s arrests.
At present, amidst extreme challenges and the oppressive actions of employers within the workplace, we are seeking aid for fellow workers. These individuals include those spearheading the movement for labor rights and federal democracy, as well as those imprisoned for advocating human and women’s rights in the workplace. We earnestly request support from our international unions and comrades to help with solidarity.
We have only a limited time left to participate in the fundraising campaign aimed at supporting our comrades inside factories.
Original message in Burmese:
မင်္ဂလာပါ
နိုင်ငံတကာမှာ ရှိနေတဲ့ သမဂ္ဂညီအကို မောင်နှမများကို ကျွန်မအနေနဲ့ အကူအညီတောင်းချင်ပါတယ်။ ကျွန်မသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအထည်ချုပ်လုပ်ငန်းခွင်ထဲက အလုပ်သမားတစ်ဦးဖြစ်ပြီးတော့ အလုပ်သမား သမဂ္ဂခေါင်းဆောင်တစ်ဦးလည်းဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ကျွန်မတို့ အလုပ်သမား သမဂ္ဂဟာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအထွေထွေအလုပ်သမား သမဂ္ဂများအဖွဲ့ချုပ် ရဲ့ အဖွဲ့ဝင်သမဂ္ဂတစ်ခုလည်း ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ စစ်အာဏာမသိမ်းခင်ကဆိုရင် ကျွန်မတို့ အလုပ်သမားတွေဟာ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေထဲက အလုပ်ရှင်တွေရဲ့ ဖိနှိပ်မှုတွေ၊ လုပ်အား ခေါင်းပုံဖြတ်မှုတွေ၊ အလုပ်သမားအခွင့်အရေးတွေကို သမဂ္ဂအင်အားနဲ့ တိုက်ယူခဲ့ကြရပါတယ်။ လက်ရှိမှာလည်း စက်ရုံလုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေဟာ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုကြောင့် ငရဲခန်းနဲ့ မခြားတဲ့ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေဖြစ်နေပါတယ်။ သပိတ်တိုက်ပွဲတွေနဲ့ မစိမ်းတဲ့ ကျွန်မတို့ အလုပ်သမားတွေဟာ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းအပြီး ၂၀၂၁ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ (၅) ရက်နေ့မှာတော့ စက်ရုံတွင်း စစ်အာဏာရှင်ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွေ စတင်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ နောက်တရက် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ (၆) ရက်နေ့မှာ စစ်အာဏာရှင် ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လမ်းပေါ်ထွက်ချီတက် လှုပ်ရှားမှုကို သမဂ္ဂခေါင်းဆောင်များအပါအဝင် စက်ရုံအလုပ်သမားထုနဲ့အတူ ချီတက်ခဲ့ကြပြီးတော့ အဆိုပါလှုပ်ရှားမှုဟာ ရန်ကုန်မြို့မှာ အစောဆုံး စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုဖြစ်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။
ဒီနောက်ပိုင်းမှာတော့ ကျွန်မတို့ အလုပ်သမားသမဂ္ဂတွေကို မလိုလားတဲ့ အလုပ်ရှင်တွေဟာ စစ်တပ်နဲ့ပူးပေါင်းပြီးတော့ စက်ရုံလုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေအထိ အလုပ်သမားသမဂ္ဂခေါင်းဆောင်တွေ၊ အဖွဲ့ဝင်တွေကို ဝင်ရောက်ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့ပါတယ်။ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေကနေ ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်ရလို့ အလုပ်လက်မဲ့ ဖြစ်နေရတဲ့အလုပ်သမားတွေများစွာရှိပါတယ်။ စစ်တပ်ရဲ့ ဖမ်းစီးမှုကြောင့် ထောင်ကျနေတဲ့ အလုပ်သမားတွေလည်း ရှိနေပါတယ်။ လက်ရှိအချိန်မှာတော့ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်တွေထဲမှာ အလုပ်ရှင်တွေရဲ့ဖိနှိပ်မှု အခက်ခဲများစွာကြားကနေ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို တော်လှန်နေတဲ့ အလုပ်သမားရဲဘော်တွေ၊ ထောင်ကျနေတဲ့ အလုပ်သမားရဲဘော်တွေ၊ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်အတွင်းက လူ့အခွင့်အရေး၊အမျိုးသမီးအခွင့်အရေး၊ အလုပ်သမားအခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်ခံနေကြရတဲ့ သမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့ဝင်အလုပ်သမားများစွာအတွက် အကူအညီများလိုအပ်နေပါတယ်။နိုင်ငံတကာမှာရှိနေသည့် သမဂ္ဂညီအကို မောင်နှမများအနေဖြင့် သွေးစည်းညီညွှတ်မှုဖြင့်ကူညီပေးကြဖို့ မေတ္တာရပ်ခံအပ်ပါတယ်။
အလုပ်သမားရဲဘော်တွေအတွက် ရန်ပုံငွေရှာတဲ့ ကမ်ပိန်းမှာ ပါဝင်ပေးကြဖို့ ရက်အနည်းငယ်သာကျန်ပါတော့တယ်။ အဲ့ဒါကြောင့်မို့ အမြန်ဆုံး ကူညီပေးကြဖို့ တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်ပါရစေ။
Some background info:
The FGWM consists of 40 (factory) labour unions and keeps uniting thousands of members. It is one of the very few labour federations known to us in Asia, which follows a grassroots approach. The FGWM has its roots in the textile factories of the industrial zones in Myanmar. The vast majority of secretaries had to flee to escape pocecution by the military junta and now operates from a house in exile. Some of the comrades who initiated this fundraising met them at their house last year. They emphasized they some of them only managed to escape with the support provided by the previous fundraising done last year.
Despite the military dictatorship they continue with their efforts. The FGWM supports workers to get organised, follows labour fights (like the recent strike at Sun Apparel), which still take place under great danger, and also tries to support members facing state repression, for example seeking refuge or supporting them in prison as far as this is possible. Another focal point is to provide training opportunities for factory workers in regards to organising and labour struggles. All of this can’t be upheld without external support. Due to the extremely precarious living conditions, which evolved especially after the military coup in February 2021, the income of membership fees collapsed. Their supportive partners on the international level are the ICL Working Group Asia as well as the Solidarity Center.
For more information: fgwm-solidarity.org
Who is behind the fundraising?
It was initiated by the Free Workers’ Union (FAU) Hamburg together with the FGWM. And by now it is being also supported and conducted by comrades of other FAU syndicates, the IWW WISE-RA as well as Earth Strike UK.
Great! So what can I do?
First of all, you can support the work of FGWM by simply contributing to the fundraising. You can do so with a credit card using the firefund page or by transfering to the account of FAU Hamburg.
Account name: AS FAU Hamburg
IBAN: DE43 4306 0967 2070 7898 00
BIC: GENODEM1GLS
Bank name: GLS Bank
Purpose: FGWM solidarity
In the end all contributions will be added to the firefund page. The amounts submitted via firefund will only be deducted from your account, if the fundraising is successful, i.e. in case the goal of 15 000 EUR is reached.
Furthermore you can help to inform many others about this effort by spreading the links listed at the beginning. Furthermore you can order a stylish solidarity shirt at DNA Merch. They will take orders until August 31st 2023 and then ask a textile/ printing collective in Croatia to make them.
Union busting following strike at JAKO factory in Yangon (Sun Apparel)
Workers at Sun Apparel Myanmar Co. Ltd garment factory have been on strike since June 6, 2023. Almost the whole factory workforce, totalling just more than 400 workers, united in the strike action.
One of their main demands is an increase of the basic daily wage from 4,800 MMK (approx. 2.09€) to 6,000 MMK (approx. 2.61€) per day. According to the minimum wage law, the minimum wage should be reviewed every 2 years and the last time the minimum wage was set in 2018. Since then, no review took place. In the industrial zone, there are a number of factories which have recently increased the minimum daily wage to 5,600 MMK per day, which also motivated the workers to go on strike. The increase in wages is vital due to the significant inscreases in prices for basic commodities. Not increasing wages since 2018 is like cutting your wages each month!
According to sources close to the military council, M.T.W., the leader of the Sun Apparel Myanmar garment factory protest workers, has been arrested by the military council. M.T.W. was arrested a day before the scheduled date to negotiate the demands.
The sources also said that it was known that M.T.W. was arrested at around 11:00 p.m. on June 14, and was taken to the No. 1 Army Military Affairs Security Support Unit for questioning.
source: khaingzaraung.com
Another main demand is the increase of attendance bonus from 20,000 MMK (approx. 8.70€) to 40,000 MMK per month. This bonus was deducted during the Covid pandemic to 10,000 MMK and still remains at 10,000 MMK. In addition to these two main demands, there are several other demands related to serious violations of labour rights.
Those include:
- Factory management calls for meetings during the workers’ lunch break.
- Although there is no clause prohibiting to bring your mobile phone to the workplace, they are confiscated during work hours and not even stored properly, so that in some cases they are returned damaged.
- For those workers who can’t or don’t want to work overtime after an eight-hour work day, the factory does not arrange return ferries to their homes. Furthermore the management refuses to pay the piece rate fees for the completed pieces during these eight hours.
- The factory owners don’t provide a proper dining place for lunch breaks and therefore workers must eat at the car parking space.
- The drinking water that the factory owners provide to the local workers is unclean and the drinking water tank is located just 3 feet away from the toilets for the female workers. In contrast, the factory provides commercial clean drinking water bottles to the foreign staff at the workplace.
Two leaders of the factory union were arrested so far, in an attempt to crush the strike.
The factory union at Sun Apparel is part of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM). You can support them by contributing to this fundraising ending August 31st, 2023.
Sun Apparel Myanmar garment factory is located in industrial zone 5 in Hlaingthayar township in Yangon and it is operating with a workforce of more than 400. According to the data collected since January 2022, Sun Apparel is a regular supplier to the JAKO sports clothing brand based in Germany.
Any possible calls against JAKO will also be announced here.
Bangladesh: Garment Workers call for international support! (minimum wage movement)
An alliance of 11 federations and unions in the garment sector of Bangladesh joined the Garment Workers’ Trade Union Center (GWTUC) in their call to fight for an increase in minimum wages to 25 000 BDT (approx. 215€ / 235US$) per month. That might not sound like much. But considering that the current minimum wage for garment workers in the country is a meager 8 000 BDT, an increase of more than 200% would be a real mile stone for the four million workers in that industry. The vast majority of which are female workers.
In Bangladesh you can find aroud 4000 garment factories, most of which produce for brands like Adidas, H&M, Nike, Marc O’Polo and Zara.
The GWTUC calls on fellow unions and individuals to stand in solidarity with the garment workers. See the call below.
GWTUC has been involved with the Global May Day network in the past few years and also supports the call for Global May Day 2023.
Let’s bring their struggle to our streets and cities!
Their fight is our fight!
#unionisethefight
#1world1struggle
PS: Don’t forget to report your actions 🙂
FGWM statement: 2 years after the military coup in Myanmar
Statement released by the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) to commemorate two years of military dictatorship following the coup in February 2021:
A Statement by the worker mass regarding the 2nd anniversary of 2021 Anti-junta Movements
Date : 5th February 2023
The Military junta forcibly seized power on 1st February 2021. In such miserable times, the public also experienced misleading information such as no public-protesting within 72 hours of the attempted coup. On 5th February, conscious workers of FGWM rose up against the Military Dictatorship. Over 12,000 workers and union leaders from 10 factories began the “Red Ribbon” campaign. On the next day, February 6th, workers and labour unions leaders marched through Insein Road and Parami Sein Gayhar Shopping Mall amidst all the risks and threats, protesting the coup and the military dictatorship. Students, People and Monks who joined the protesting workers will be remembered by our FGWM.
On this 6th February, it has been two years since the worker mass courageously rose up against the coup. As FGWM, we would like to declare to the public that we will vigorously continue our struggle until the fall of the dictatorship along with the workers.
With ultimate faith to the revolution,
Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM)
#BloodMoneyMyanmar: Open letter submitted to French Governmet – NO exemptions for TotalEnergies!
TotalEnergies already announced to move out of Myanmar this year. But still revenues keep flowing from TotalEnergies to the military junta. Therefore 459 civil society organisations submitted an open letter to the French government urging them to stick to EU sanctions and not provide any exemptions for TotalEnergies! For more details check out the page on the Blood Money Campaign.
Open Letter to President Macron:
Do not authorize TotalEnergies’ use of exemptions to EU sanctions!
Worldwide call: Do not authorize TotalEnergies’ use of exemptions to EU Sanctions on the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE)
We urge President Macron and the French Government to:
1. Prevent millions of dollars of gas revenues reaching the junta by refusing to authorize TotalEnergies’ use of exemptions to EU sanctions – instead enforce EU sanctions and ensure that TotalEnergies does not hand over its share and interests to MOGE, and continue making and facilitating payments to MOGE before it exits or bring in a new operator that will collude with the junta.
2. Continue to support the Myanmar people’s efforts to defeat the brutal military junta and build a federal democracy and stop TotalEnergies from funding genocidaires, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Please stand with justice and humanity!
459 Myanmar, regional & international organizations including Civil Society Organizations, Community Based Organizations, Human Rights Organizations, Humanitarian & charity organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, strike committees and labour unions from 20 countries.
#BloodMoneyMyanmar: Days of protest to pressure French government! (June 16 – 20th)
Announcement by
Blood Money Campaign:
Call on President Macron and the French Government to refuse to allow TotalEnergies to use exemptions to EU Sanctions!
Targets: President Macron, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, French Embassy in Myanmar, French Ambassador
16-20 June 2022
#NoExemption #FreezePaymentsToJunta
#BloodMoneyMyanmar
We urge local and international Strike Committees, Revolution Organizations, CSOs, Unions and INGOs to be involved in the Blood Money Campaign: Preventing millions of dollars in gas revenues to reach the genocidal junta and to stop its brutality and disincentivizes it from the coup.
UPDATE (June 20th, 2022)
Joint Statement
Myanmar and International: Call on President Macron and the French Government to refuse to allow TotalEnergies to use exemptions to EU Sanctions, 459 Organizations from 20 countries.
We urge President Macron and the French Government
1. To prevent millions of dollars of gas revenues reaching the Myanmar military criminal junta by refusing to authorize TotalEnergies’ use of exemptions to EU sanctions.
2. It is imperative that the French government continues to support the Myanmar people’s efforts to end the brutal military dictatorship and build a federal democracy and stop TotalEnergies from funding genocidaires.
President Macron must listen to his own lawmakers and officials and stop capitulating to a corporation that has demonstrated a willingness to disregard the Myanmar people and fund a military junta that is actively engaging in genocide and crimes against humanity.
Online activities and ground movement
- Photo Campaign (to post on Facebook + Twitter)
- Comment Campaign
- Twitter Trending
- Ground Protest!
1. Photo Campaign
Call on President Macron and the French Government to refuse to allow TotalEnergies to use exemptions to EU Sanctions!
Write the requested text on a paper and upload the photo to your social media accounts with the bloody three-finger salute sign.
You can wear a red shirt, a blood-stained shirt, and a red armband.
Requested text on paper:
President Macron & French Government – Don’t Allow Exemptions
President Macron – Stop TotalEnergies funding genocide
French Government – #NoExemption
#NoExemption #FreezePaymentsToJunta
#NoExemptions #FreezePaymentsToJunta #သံဃသမဂ္ဂ-မန္တလေး #Samghasamaggamdy #samghasamagga
Hashtags to use:
#NoExemption #FreezePaymentsToJunta #BloodMoneyMyanmar #Total_StopSponsoringJunta
Please send your photos to the BMC page: fb.com/BloodMoneyCampaignMM and email to bloodmoneycampaign21@gmail.com and asia@icl-cit.org.
2. Comment Campaign (Facebook and Twitter)
Please comment with photos that the genocidal junta commits atrocities in Myanmar!
Facebook:
French President: fb.com/EmmanuelMacron
Ministry of Foreign Affairs: fb.com/france.diplomacy
French Embassy in Myanmar: fb.com/France.Birmanie
French Ambassador: fb.com/christian.lechervy.3
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #NoExemption
For the comments, you can use these sample texts (.doc).
3. Twitter mass trending
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #NoExemption
Accounts to mention:
French President: @EmmanuelMacron
French Diplomacy: @francediplo_EN
French Ambassador: @CLechervy
On the Twitter Team For Revolution Facebook page, you can see the dates and times to join Twitter mass trending. To support the mass trending, the below pictures and these sample tweets (.doc) were created!
4. Ground Protest
President Macron and French Government – Don’t Allow Exemptions
ပြင်သစ် အစိုးရအနေနဲ့ ကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်တွေ အသုံးပြုခွင့် မပေးပါနဲ့။
President Macron – Stop TotalEnergies funding genocide
ပြင်သစ် သမ္မတ – တိုတယ် က ရာဇဝတ်မှုတွေ ထောက်ပံ့နေတာကို ရပ်တန့်ပေးပါ။
French Government – #NoExemption
ပြင်သစ်အစိုးရ #ကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်တွေကိုအသုံးပြုခွင့်မပေးနဲ့။
#NoExemptions #FreezePaymentsToJunta #Total_StopSponsoringJunta #BloodMoneyMyanmar
18th June, 2022
Location: Ayadaw Township, war-torn Sagaing Region
Photo courtesy: Ayadaw Strike Committee (ASC)
Despite of simultaneous oppressions from the junta and instablities in the region, anti-junta mass movement of Phaung Kar Village, Letpadaung area demanding ‘President Macron’ & French Government not to allow exemptions for TotalEnergies!
#NoExemption #FreezePaymentsToJunta #Total_StopSponsoringJunta
#BloodMoneyMyanmar
source: fb.com
5. Massive Calling and Mailing
Only AFTER June 20th!
Let’s call and speak to the French Government not to allow TotalEnergies to use exemptions and to stop the funding of atrocities in Myanmar. No business with complicity in crimes against humanity, other mass atrocities and genocidal junta!
French Embassy’s phone number: +95 1 212 520
Email Address: ambafrance.rangoun@diplomatie.gouv.fr
#BloodMoneyMyanmar: Pressure Chevron/TotalEnergies Shareholders (May 21 – 25th, 2022)
Target – TotalEnergies, Chevron’s shareholders Meeting on May 25th, 2022
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #KeepInEscrowAccount
Global Week of Action (May 21 – 25th, 2022)
[Mya version – မြန်မာ | pictures]
Please join Blood Money Campaign: Not to reach more hundreds of millions of dollars gas revenues to the genocidal junta!
Online activities and ground movement
- Photo Campaign (to post Facebook + Twitter)
- Comment Campaign
- Twitter Trending
- Massive Calling!
- Ground Protest!
1. Photo Campaign
(a) Write the requested text on a paper and upload the photo to your social media accounts with the three-finger salute sign.
You can wear a red shirt, a blood-stained shirt, and a red armband.
Requested text on paper:
Chevron, TotalEnergies – STOP bankrolling the junta!
Chevron, TotalEnergies – The junta kills with your money!
Chevron, TotalEnergies – Keep gas payments in escrow accounts!
*** Pls join Anti-Chevron Day on May 21st, 2022 to pressure Chevron! ***
TotalEnergies – Don’t ask for sanctions exemptions!
TotalEnergies – Don’t bankroll the junta with another $250 Million!
Hashtags to use:
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #KeepInEscrowAccount
#Chevron_StopSponsoringJunta #Total_StopSponsoringJunta #BloodMoneyMyanmar
Please send your photos to BMC page and email to bloodmoneycampaign21@gmail.com.
2. Comment Campaign (facebook and twitter)
Please comment with photos that the junta commits activity crimes in Myanmar!
Chevron Shareholder – @TIAA
TotalEnergies – @TotalEnergies
Chevron Shareholder // TotalEnergies
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #KeepInEscrowAccount
For the comments you can use these sample texts (.doc).
3. Twitter mass trending
#FreezePaymentsToJunta #KeepInEscrowAccount #BloodMoneyMyanmar
Accounts to mention: @Chevron @TotalEnergies @TIAA @CalPERS @PPouyanne
On the Twitter Team For Revolution facebook page, you can see the dates and times to join Twitter mass trending. To support the mass trending, the below pictures and these sample tweets (.doc) were created!
4. Massive calling
Let’s call and speak to TotalEnergies and Chevron company to stop funding to atrocity crimes and not doing business with complicit in crimes against humanity, other mass atrocites and genocidal junta.
Total Energies Phone: +33 (0)1 47 44 45 46
Chevron Phone: +1-925-842-1000
Myanmar Time: 1:30 P.M. – 8:30 P.M.
Central European Time: 8:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.
USA, Washington DC: 3:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M.
USA, Los Angeles: 12:00 A.M. – 7:00 A.M.
Time check with for your region: globaltimeconverter.com
Sample Text for phone calling:
Hello, I am from Myanmar. I want to ask to your company CEO and shareholders. Why is your company still bankrolling gas payments to the genocidal junta to kill the Myanmar people every day?
Your governement does not recognize the genocidal junta so why are you funding the criminal junta?
Your company announced to all apply business and human rights principles so why are you funding the killing fields in Myanmar?
Do you know that the junta uses your company’s gas payments to purchase arms and ammunition to kill civilians? Every day the junta finances airstikes and jet aviation fuel with your bankrolls.
So please stop bankrolling to the junta and keep all gas revenues in an escrow account to save many lives. Please behave humanely and stand on the side of human rights and justice.
Our children, youth, women and elder people are being killed and burnt alive every day with your money. Please stop being accessory to murder.
We urge your shareholders to adopt a policy of not doing business which is complicit in crimes against humanity, other mass atrocites and genocidal junta.
For Total company:
We urge your shareholders please don’t ask for exemptions! And Keep decommission fees in escrow accounts for the Myanmar People!
Please don’t bankroll 250 million USD, shares and interest to MOGE!
We urge Chevron/ Total to divert into escrow any upcoming payments intended for the Myanmar government instead of giving the money to the genocidal military junta.
5. Ground protest
Slogans:
TotalEnergies, Chevron– The junta kills with your money!
Chevron, TotalEnergies – STOP bankrolling the junta!
Chevron, TotalEnergies – Keep gas payments in escrow accounts!
TotalEnergies – Don’t ask for sanctions exemptions!
TotalEnergies – Don’t bankroll the junta with another $250 Million!
Mya version – မြန်မာ
Pictures during action days
The days of action (May 21 – 24th, 2022) saw activities to pressure TotalEnergies and Chevron in several cities across Myanmar as well as other countries and online:
#BloodMoneyMyanmar: Global Week of Action to #SanctionMOGE! (May 7 – 15th)
#US_SanctionMOGE – Global Action Week
May 7 – 15th, 2022
☆ photo campaign ☆ twitter mass trending ☆ comment campaign ☆ profile frame ☆ public letter ☆ gallery ☆
Online activities and ground movement
1. Photo Campaign
(a) Write the requested text on a paper and upload the photo to your social media accounts with the three-finger salute sign.
You can wear a red shirt, a blood-stained shirt, and a red armband.
Requested text on paper:
- Biden – the more you delay, the more we suffer. Sanction Gas Revenues!
- Save lives by cutting off the genocidal Junta’s financial pillars, gas revenues.
- Mr. President – Stop atrocities in Myanmar, Sanction MOGE right now!
- USA – please sanction MOGE
- No gas? No lights? We don’t care as long as we stay alive!
- No oil? No jobs? It’s OK, if the killing stops!
Hashtags to use:
#US_SanctionMOGE #TakeAction_NoMoreWords #BloodMoneyMyanmar
2. Twitter mass trending
#US_SanctionMOGE
#TakeAction_NoMoreWord
#BloodMoneyMyanmar
Accounts to mention:
@POTUS (President Joe Biden)
@USTreasury (Department of Treasury)
On the Twitter Team For Revolution facebook page, you can see the dates and times to join Twitter mass trending. To support the mass trending, the below pictures and these sample tweets (.doc) were created!
3. Comment Campaign (Facebook and Twitter)
#US_SanctionMOGE #SanctionGasRevenues
Twitter:
• President Joe Biden
• US Department of Treasury
Facebook:
• President Joe Biden
• US Department of Treasury
For the comments you can use these sample texts (.doc).
4. Profile Frame Campaign
- To change the profile frame, access this link.
- Click on choose photo
- Pick the photo you want to choose as a profile picture.
- If a check mark appears on the image, click done in the upper right corner.
- Then click next and download the image.
- Now you can see the picture in your phone gallery.
- You can create a profile on your social accounts.
5. Public Letter Campaign to President Biden
Send the following text to the white house:
On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military seized power in a coup d’etat, imprisoning civilian leaders as well as pro-democracy and human rights advocates.
In response to this coup, young people in Myanmar have taken to the streets in a new #CivilDisobedienceMovement (CDM) demanding an end to military rule. They are calling on the international community to impose tough and targeted sanctions, including stopping oil and gas companies from bankrolling the military through their partnerships with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
The military is now brutally cracking down, imprisoning, injuring, and killing thousands of peaceful pro-democracy protesters. The United States has already imposed sanctions on top military leaders and some military-owned companies. But it is vital that the United States honor CDM’s call for tougher targeted sanctions that stop the flow of money from foreign corporations to the Myanmar military.
It is long past time for the United States to impose sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) as part of stopping oil and gas companies – such as Chevron, Total, Petronas, and Posco – from continuing to bankroll the Burmese military.
Please take all appropriate actions to end the flow of money from foreign corporations to Myanmar’s military.
Gallery of additional social media pictures
#BloodMoneyMyanmar: Sanction MOGE (petitions)
The military junta stays in power also with the help of the money generated by Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. Therefore the Blood Money Campaign is calling to sanction MOGE!
More background info on this topic can be found on the page dedicated to reports on #SanctionMOGE.
An easy way to support the movement against the fascist military junta is to sign and share the petitions below!
Feminists united – Report by FAU Hamburg on IWD 2022
Below is a report by the Free Workers’ Union (FAU) Hamburg on their activities on March 8th – a day to commemorate feminist struggles worldwide. The original in German is online here.
With the activities around the day of feminist struggles, we set our own substantive accents and focused on the resistance movement against the military junta in Myanmar (or Burma).
The highlight was our rally in front of the Adidas store on Mönckebergstraße. Over 20 comrades, consisting of activists from the FAU, IWW and people who originally came from Myanmar and now live in Hamburg, gathered in front of the store. There was good music, a speech by a feminist in Myanmar, conversations with passers-by and some pyro-light.
To listen to the input recorded by a comrade of the Women League of Burma:
Why Adidas? Because the company says it continues to source clothes from six factories in the country. Many unions – including our friends at the Federation of General Workers Myanmar – are calling for comprehensive economic sanctions and the withdrawal of all international companies in the hope of weakening the military junta. After all, all taxes and duties flow into their pockets and also finance their repressive apparatus.
More background information can be found in this leaflet, several hundred copies of which were distributed (unfortunately only available in German):
Before the rally, we also participated in the demo of the 8M Strike Alliance, which started on the Reeperbahn. Many thousands of people were with us on the streets of Hamburg that day to make a statement against patriarchy.
We highly recommend the following video. It is an appeal by feminists from various groups in Myanmar, which was coordinated together with us. It also explains why we had a sarong at the rally:
We are also happy to announce that the fundraising campaign in solidarity with the comrades of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) ended successfully on March 8th. A total of 14,285 € was collected! 🥳
Thank you to everyone who helped to bring this to a successful conclusion!
The money will be handed over in full to FGWM soon.
