Lawsuit claims ExxonMobil liable for tortures, rapes and murders in Indonesia

Dec 29, 2019 News

“There wasn’t a single person in Aceh (pronounced AH-chay) who didn’t know that the massacres were taking place … everybody was afraid,” A former top Indonesian government official is quoted as saying.

Indonesian military forces

His comments are contained in a shocking lawsuit brought against ExxonMobil by some Indonesian villagers, so fearful for their lives that they became plaintiffs on the condition of anonymity. The males are identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe, and the females are named Jane Doe, the names commonly used for persons whose identities are concealed. Some represent their deceased spouses.
They feared that if they raised their complaints in Indonesia, they would face retribution from their authorities. ExxonMobil has been operating in the Southeast Asian country for decades, even before it became known as ExxonMobil.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. It notes that the plaintiffs are filing there because they do not have access to an independent or functioning legal system within Indonesia to ra

Arun liquefaction facility

ise their complaints.
The lawsuit against the oil major that only started producing oil in Guyana just days ago, tells scary stories of detainment, torture, sexual violence and murder between 1999 and 2001.
The defendants are ExxonMobil Corporation; its Indonesian subsidiary, ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia Inc.; and the oil major’s predecessors, Mobil Corporation, and Mobil Oil.
The Arun natural gas fields were discovered five decades ago. One of the largest in the world, the fields were once said to be the jewels in Exxon’s crown, as the company was granted exclusive rights to explore for and produce natural gas by the Indonesian government.
The lawsuit states, “ExxonMobil has received hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the Arun project. Throughout the 1990s… the Arun gas fields comprised approximately 25% of Mobil Corp’s world revenues.”
It was so important that the oil major hired Indonesian military agents to protect its operations during a period of civil unrest. The forces, of whom their history of human rights abuses was common knowledge, wreaked havoc on innocents.
“People literally line up to tell stories of abuses and murders committed by the troops they call Exxon’s army.” The lawsuit quotes an article from the Time’s Magazine Asia edition about the horrific events of two decades ago in the Indonesian province of Ac“““eh.
“The article reported that a certain farmer was held for a month by ExxonMobil security personnel and whipped nightly with ropes of barbed wire, burned with cigarettes and beaten unconscious with a wooden board. He was also forced to watch the security personnel shoot his brother in the head,” the lawsuit states.
It goes on to add that in ExxonMobil’s cluster IV gas field, Anwar was dragged, kicking and screaming, past men wearing white uniforms and ExxonMobil hard hats…”
The suit quotes the article as stating that “according to locals, riding a bicycle or oxcart on the street in front of ExxonMobil’s facilities has become a deadly game of dodge-bullet, with soldiers taking potshots at just about anybody who moves. Those who pass at the wrong time of day are sometimes dragged into ExxonMobil’s warehouses and taught a lesson.”
This is just one report in a wider, gruesome story of the horror Indonesian villagers faced, as reported in the suit. ExxonMobil has since 2001 shut down its natural gas operations there, and refuses to take responsibility for the atrocities.
Please see Kaieteur News’ New Year’s Day edition for more details.

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