Home

About Us

Alerts

Campaigns

Join CLR

Resources

Tri-Mountain: Promoting Oppression in Burma

Posted May 24

Help stop dictatorship in Burma: a promotional apparel company called "Tri-Mountain" is helping support Burma's military regime by importing huge quantities of "Made in Burma" products. In fact, Tri-Mountain is currently one of the biggest importers of products from Burma! Please take a minute to tell this company to end support for forced labor and stop the retail of products from Burma!

Write Tri-Mountain at , attention: Rosy Tsai, Vice President.

*****************************

Send an Email Demanding That Tri-Mountain Stop Supporting Slavery in Burma!

Tri-Mountain, a major producer of promotional apparel for corporations, associations, civic groups, and sports teams, imports huge quantities of garments from Burma - a Southeast Asian country ruled by a brutal military dictatorship. Their clothing can be found at campus stores such as the University of Wisconsin and Washington State, which have had their school logo jackets produced by Tri-Mountain, and is also used by groups as diverse as the American Bowling Congress and the Albany River Rats (sports team). Most if not all of their products have a label reading "Tri-Mountain" on the inside collar, regardless of whether the embroidered logo on the outside is for the University of Wisconsin or for Auto Enthusiast.

The company should know better: the garment industry in Burma is closely tied to a modern form of slave labor! Garment companies in Burma are controlled completely by the country's dictators, whom have been criticized by the U.S. State Department, the United Nations, Amnesty International, and others for brutal violations of human rights -- killing, torture, a modern form of slave labor, and rape.

The money people spend on Tri-Mountain's clothes from Burma benefits Burma's military dictators and means more suffering for the 50 million people living in the country.

Burma's dictatorship leads the world in child soldiers with over 70,000 - many of whom are literally kidnapped off city streets and forced into a life of beatings and dehumanizing treatment. As soldiers, these children are forced to take part in atrocities like torture, rape, and murder of civilians in Burma's rural areas. They are also treated as slaves: forced to toil for their officers' profit.

When the Free Burma Coalition first contacted Tri-Mountain about its business ties to Burma, the company responded with a patronizing letter describing their "annual trips" to Burma and how it is "next to impossible for people living in States [sic] to experience or even imagine how these [Burmese] people live." Of course, for people like Aung Din, FBC Director of Policy, and our many Burmese members and supporters, they know very well what it is like to live in Burma under the military regime. Burma's brutal regime gets only richer because of its garment export trade and companies like Tri-Mountain should not be helping to keep them in power.

TAKE ACTION!

Write a letter to Tri-Mountain's Vice-President, Ms. Rosy Tsai, at .

Points to include in your email:

• Forced labor - including forced child labor - is used in the construction of Burma's factories and infrastructure, as has been documented by the U.S. State Department and the International Labor Organization.
• Other companies have agreed to stop importing products from Burma, including Wal-Mart, Gart Sports, Columbia Sportswear, Adidas, The Spiegel Group, Jones Apparel Group, Fila, Tommy Hilfiger, The Children's Place Retail Stores, JanSport, and Phillips-Van Heusen. Promotional apparel companies like Vantage Custom Classics and Leeds have also banned production in Burma.
• Tri-Mountain perpetuates forced labor, the forced conscription of child soldiers, and other abuses in Burma by helping to create a demand for products made there and by providing currency for Burma's regime and its cronies.
• Most Important: You will not buy any Tri-Mountain products until the company stops selling goods from Burma.

Do not simply cut and paste this message into your email.

Please send a copy of your email to and any responses you get from the company to .

For more information on the boycott of products from Burma, www.freeburmacoalition.org or call 202-547-5985.