By TON Research Desk

On May 8, in Japan the Blood Money Campaign (BMC) group Protesters urged on the US government to impose sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise to thwart its ways of coercions.

The human right campaigners were urging US President to impose sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), which provides a financial sustenance help to Myanmar’s junta. The European Union imposed sanctions on the firm in February.

The Blood Money Campaign (BMC) pursue to financially isolate the junta which was initiated and designed by activists and union leaders on the ground in Myanmar. The BMC team is consist of of activists with different upbringings like labor and student unions, public engagement, peace and education activists, as well as people in research, IT, and other lobbies.

More than 637 domestic organizations, including protest committees, labor unions, women’s rights and educational groups and over 220,000 individuals signed an open letter to US president. The BMC called on US president to listen to Myanmar’s people miseries and sanction MOGE to cutoff the financial helpline of Myanmar junta. As it is time to protect Myanmar democracy practically.

The Blood Money Campaign (BMC) group has also alleged that the junta grabbed nearby US$1.5 billion in gas revenue from state bank accounts after the 2021 coup to fund genocide and murder. We don’t ask the US to provide weapons. We only ask the US to stop paying the fascist regime for natural resources

MOGE which has been a lifeline for Myanmar military governments for decades and an estimated 50 percent of foreign currency came from natural gas and Myanmar earned around $1.5 billion from oil and gas in the 2020-21 financial year. Myanmar’s state-owned oil and Gas Company, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) should be in sanctions list, along with 22 individuals and three other companies

The campaign urged the US administration to stop gas revenues reaching the junta by working with allies in Thailand and South Korea to divert income to accounts held until the civilian National Unity Government is recognized.

The gas companies and banks which traded with the junta should face money-laundering charges and the junta-controlled Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank should face sanctions for money laundering.

International oil and gas firms like Total, Chevron and Woodside left Myanmar after the coup. China, the largest source, provides around 27 percent of oil and gas investment. The Human rights organizations are urging Total not to pay the junta about $250 million it owes Myanmar.

Since the coup in February last year, the regime has killed more than 1,800 people and it uses airstrikes, artillery, arson attacks, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests against civilians.

However, it is the EU’s decision to add MOGE to its sanctions list that is the most significant step any member of the international community has yet taken to punish Myanmar’s brutal military junta for its ongoing attempt to take control of the country.

Myanmar’s offshore gas sector provides over a billion USD per year in revenue to the government, money that is now being expropriated by a military junta that has killed over 1,500 civilians since the coup.

Activists have been calling for months for the international community to cut off the military’s access to this revenue by sanctioning MOGE, and the EU appears to have finally heeded these calls.

In addition to MOGE the EU sanctions list is a hugely targeted the revenue sources helping keep the military afloat. This move is a welcome one but long overdue. Now the US and UK must follow suit, and all three must focus on enforcing these crucial economic sanctions.

At the moment, the US is taking the side of the oil and gas companies and their lobbyists over Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. The US should follow the suit of European Union (EU) because these sanctions are enormously important and should be confirmed after the EU sanctions in February this year holding responsible those who have helped allow the military’s actions to account.