Monywa People's Strike Steering Committee
The "Monywa Township Mass Strike Leading Committee" was formed on February 9, 2021, to lead the strikes of Monywa residents resisting the Myanmar military, which unlawfully arrested and detained the people's elected leaders and government members and forcibly seized state power by force of arms.
The Monywa Mass Strike Leading Committee includes the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (Monywa District), the University Students' Unions Network – Monywa, the National League for Democracy (Monywa Township), the Thakin Kodaw Hmaing Peace Network (Monywa), the Former Political Prisoners and New Generation Forces Group (Monywa), and the Civil Society Organizations Cooperation Committee (Monywa).
It continues to lead the strike struggle in line with its directions, including ending military dictatorship, freeing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and detained political leaders, and implementing the 2020 election results. The committee also documents the experiences of political prisoners suffering human rights violations in Myingyan, Pakokku and Monywa prisons, including beatings and torture during interrogation, political prisoners killed through torture, hunger strikes by political prisoners, sentences by unjust courts, cutting off of food and water, spreading of false news, beatings and electric shocks, solitary confinement, repression and human rights violations in courtrooms, forced hard labour, sexual abuse of LGBT people, and bans on political prisoners reading. It also shares the Federal Democracy Charter, basic policies for building a federal democratic union, and the federal democratic education policy.
It also contributes to people-to-people assistance. It has shared collective donations to displaced people and, at Thingyan, "Revolutionary Thingyan, Revolutionary Thangyat and the Peacock Generation" and "Revolutionary Thingyan, the People's Voice".
The committee has run "rural people's political talks", "basic human rights and federal democracy courses" for local youth capacity-building, talks to a Monywa District battalion on Myanmar political history, democracy, federalism, the political roadmap and the two Codes of Conduct (COC), a public talk in a village in Budalin Township, with the Monywa University of Economics Students' Union, on freedom of education and opening community-based schools, a public talk with the same union on federalism, fearlessness and federal education, a Children's Day talk, and strike talks presenting political awareness and revolutionary content and methods to the public. It has also continuously campaigned against the terrorist military council's "sham election".
For International Women's Day, the committee and the Monywa Township People's Administration Team jointly presented images documenting the activities of fierce revolutionary women in Monywa Township.
On March 3, 2021, nine revolutionary comrades from Monywa were killed on Phayar Ni Road (Martyrs' Road) in a violent crackdown by the coup junta's henchmen. March 3 was also the first day blood was shed in Monywa after the 2021 coup. So, every March 3, it has led commemorations of the Phayar Ni Road (Martyrs' Road) crackdown, including its second anniversary, and documented the martyrs killed in it. Together with the Monywa Township People's Administration Team, it distributed lists of military-made products. It also visited villages in the region to distribute boycott lists (lists of products to avoid). In December 2022, the committee attended and joined discussions at a meeting between the Committee Representing Sagaing Region Hluttaw (CRSH) and Sagaing Region strike forces. In the first and second weeks of August 2022, it ran courses sharing knowledge on civic education and federalism.
On May 14, 2023, it issued a statement on the military council's offensives and violence while people were facing the natural disaster of Cyclone Mocha. Before the cyclone, it also issued an emergency news release and procedures for emergency evacuation. Since the day it was formed, the committee has continuously led and taken part in strike columns.
The strike columns and strike committees it has worked with include the Women's Strike Column, the Monywa–Amyint Road Villages Strike Column, the Sagaing Region Yinmabin Salingyi Combined Villages Strike Column, the Sagaing Region Kani Township Spring Revolution Strike Column, the village torch strike, the Chaung-U Township Youth Force Strike Committee, the Ayadaw Township Mass Strike Leading Committee, the Kani Township Mass Strike Leading Committee, the Myingyan People's Movement Strike Leading Committee, the Monywa University of Economics Students' Union, YFC Myaung Youth Network, the Monywa University Students' Union, the Letpadaung Main Strike, the Budalin Township Students' Union (ABFSU), the University Students' Unions Network (Monywa), the West Chindwin Bank Strike Committee, the Monywa Revolutionary Youth Network, Monywa Youth Organizing and the Monywa Basic Education Students' Union.
The Monywa Mass Strike Leading Committee cooperates with groups taking part in the revolution and is a member organization of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC).
Reference
1. https://www.facebook.com/MonywaPSSC
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