BY SAM FROST
Oil giant ExxonMobil's operations in the Indonesian province of Aceh are to be examined by a US court, after 11 Acehnese filed a suit against the company, claiming to have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of military units acting on its behalf.
The International Labor Rights Fund has requested a jury trial of ExxonMobil and subsidiaries ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Oil Corporation and PT Arun LNG Company. It is seeking substantial damages.
The plaintiffs claim that ExxonMobil entered into contracts for exploitation, exploration and transportation of Aceh's natural gas resources with the government of Indonesia, knowing that this would require an arrangement under which the TNI, the Indonesian armed forces, would be deployed specifically to provide security for ExxonMobil facilities and employees and that these troops would systematically engage in human rights violations.
According to the ILRF, these human rights violations have included "genocide, murder, torture, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, and kidnapping". The fund claims that murders carried out have been "part of a systematic campaign of extermination of the people of Aceh by ExxonMobil and TNI security forces and, therefore, constitute ethnic genocide".
ExxonMobil is alleged to have provided direct payments and supplies to the TNI security forces assigned to protect the Arun oil and gas project, as well as having purchased military equipment for the security forces.
The suit says that the Mobil companies and PT Arun employed TNI Unit 113, as well as other units of the TNI, and paid the Indonesian military a regular monthly or annual fee for such services.
Employing Unit 113 gave Exxon Mobil effective control over it. This "control and direction includes conditioning payment on the provision of specific security services, making decisions about where to place bases, strategic mission planning, and making decisions about specific deployment areas", according to the plaintiffs' suit.
The companies have also "paid mercenaries to provide advice, training, intelligence and equipment to the TNI military in the project area".
Logistical and material support included:
- "the construction and/or provision of buildings and supplies for two military barracks located on or next to [project areas] ... and which were used by Indonesian Kopassus (special forces) units to interrogate, torture and murder Achenese civilians suspected of engaging in separatist activities;
- "the provision of heavy equipment such as excavators so that the Indonesian military could dig mass graves to bury their Achenese victims; and
- "the use of roads constructed by the Mobil companies and/or their contractors to transport the military's Acehnese victims to mass graves located near the [project areas]."
The ExxonMobil support of the TNI is, however, not limited to the region of the oil and gas project. Its support included "general support for the TNI to ensure that ... [the companies'] business arrangement with the Indonesian government in Aceh is not nullified by the creation of an independent state for the people of Aceh as the result of a democratic uprising."
This support for both the government and the military is designed to "to keep the Indonesian government in power during the life of the Arun Project" and, hence, ExxonMobil directly "supported and continue to support the military's reign of terror in Aceh".
By November 30, 1999, when ExxonMobil became the parent company of the Mobil companies, there was a "clear public record of pervasive and systematic human rights violations perpetrated upon villagers of Aceh by the TNI troops, specifically hired to provide security for the Arun Project and that had received direct support from the Mobil Companies and PT Arun", the suit states.
"Numerous human rights groups, including several based in Aceh with current information on the genocide of the people of Aceh, specifically requested that the Mobil companies and, since November 30, 1999 ... Exxon Mobil, cease its operations in Aceh until it could make arrangements to operate without using the murderous TNI for security".
ExxonMobil has refused these requests, and instead has "demanded that the Indonesian military security forces increase the number of troops and take all necessary steps to guarantee the security of the Arun Project, without regard for, and with full knowledge of, the human rights impact on the Achenese people who live near the Arun Project".
In early March, ExxonMobil shut down most of the project, unhappy with the failure of military operations to provide sufficient levels of security.
The complaint specifically details some of the crimes which took place.
Victim 1 was riding his bike to a local marketplace to sell vegetables, when he was "accosted by soldiers who were assigned to ExxonMobil's TNI Unit 113. The solders shot him in the wrist, threw a hand grenade at him and then left him for dead".
As a result he suffered "severe injuries ... including the loss of his right hand and left eye and several severe wounds to his body".
Victim 2 was riding on his motorbike and was pulled over by soldiers assigned to Unit 113. The soldiers took the bike and then "beat him severely on his head and body. The soldiers then tied his hands behind his back, put a blindfold on him, and threw him in their truck and took him to what he later learned was Rancong Camp [next to PT Arun's plant]. The soldiers detained and tortured him there for a period of three months, all the while keeping him blindfolded".
As a result Victim 2 suffered "severe injuries as a result of the beatings inflicted by the soldiers, who also tortured him using electricity all over his body, included his genitals".
After three months of detention, "the soldiers took off his blindfold, took him outside the building where he had been detained and showed him a large pit where there was a large pile of human heads. The soldiers threatened to kill him and add his head to the pile."
After being released, Victim 2, not long after having returned home, had soldiers come to his house. He fled and in turn his home was burnt to the ground.
Victim 3 was riding his motorbike past a refugee camp, located near part of the ExxonMobil complex, which houses people who have been "displaced by the destruction of their homes by the ExxonMobil security forces".
Approaching the camp, soldiers from Unit 113 "shot him in three places on his leg. He fell down and lost consciousness. The soldiers took him to a police or military camp and tortured him for several hours while he continued to bleed from the gunshot wounds. The soldiers broke his kneecap, smashed his skull, and burned him with cigarettes. The soldiers then took him to the police headquarters in North Aceh, and the police took him to the hospital for treatment. When his wounds were treated, he was returned to the TNI Unit 113 soldiers. The soldiers kept him in custody for approximately one month and tortured him regularly".
His release only came about after a local human rights organisation bribed government officials.
In July 2000, Victim 4, while traveling to a village near his home, was "accosted by soldiers assigned to ExxonMobil's TNI Unit 113. The soldiers beat him and then handcuffed him and blindfolded him. They took him to Post 13 [near ExxonMobil's natural gas extraction facilities] where they continued to torture him by beating him and threatening to kill him. The soldiers accused him of being part of [the separatist movement] GAM."
When he denied the charge, the soldiers "threw him to the ground and, using a soldier's knife, carved the letters GAM into his back".
He was kept in custody for several weeks, with TNI members "regularly torturing him". Again, he was released only after a local human rights organisation paid bribes to soldiers. ExxonMobil has denied the allegations.