ExxonMobil sued over human rights abuses in Aceh province

The International Labor Rights Fund announced in Washington Thursday that it had sued U.S. oil and gas giant ExxonMobil Corporation on charges it paid and directed government security forces who committed atrocities while protecting an ExxonMobil facility in the troubled Aceh province, Indonesia, reports said.

The suit was filed Wednesday in a US District Court on behalf of 11 residents of Aceh, under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows US jurisdiction over acts committed outside the United States.

ExxonMobil and Indonesia's state-owned oil company Pertamina exploit natural gas in the violence-torn province which lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island in the southeast Asian archipelago.

"ExxonMobil understood from the day it decided to begin its project in Aceh that the army units assigned to protect company wells were notoriously brutal in their treatment of Indonesia's ethnic minorities," Terry Collingsworth, an attorney for the Fund, said in a statement.

The suit charges that Exxon Mobil provided logistical and material support to Indonesian troops operating in Aceh province during the 1989-1998 period when former president Soeharto declared it a "military operational area" in order to combat a separatist movement.

During that period Mobil Oil, which has since merged with Exxon, provided logistical and material support to Indonesian troops, which included building barracks where elite military units carried out torture, and providing excavators used to dig mass graves, the suit says.

In a statement, ExxonMobil categorically denied the charges.

"ExxonMobil condemns the violation of human rights in any form. As such, our company rejects and categorically denies any suggestion or implication that it or its affiliate companies were in any way involved with alleged human rights abuses by security forces in Aceh," the statement said.

"We are deeply troubled and highly concerned about the violence in North Aceh," the statement said, adding that the company has "always been sensitive to the needs of the local residents, our employees and the government."

"The unrest in this area seriously impacts the safety and well-being of our workers, their families and our subcontractors, as well as those who live in the area."

PT ExxonMobil Indonesia, which suspended operations in March for security reasons, is preparing to resume oil and gas production in Aceh in early July, the company's spokeswoman confirmed Thursday in Jakarta.

On Wednesday, the Indonesian military said they would deploy more than 2,000 soldiers to ensure security for the operations.

The Indonesia government and Acehnese separatists are scheduled to resume peace talks in Geneva next month. But in the meantime Jakarta has launched a crackdown and sent more than 1,000 troops to Aceh, leading to a sharp escalation in violence. More than 800 people have been killed in Aceh this year alone. (*)