Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 01, 2020 News
The latest development affecting the lawsuit filed against ExxonMobil over the gross human rights abuses has taken the oil company out of the woods, as the US Court has held that it is up to Congress – not the Court – to decide whether to permit lawsuits of that nature. They could cause strife between nations.
In this matter, the case is one taken to the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeking justice for Indonesian villagers who were kidnapped, tortured, raped and even murdered by Indonesian military forces hired by ExxonMobil.
The forces were hired to protect ExxonMobil’s operations but lay waste to innocent lives.
These are some stories of the plaintiffs, some dead and represented by their spouses or relatives, who have shared only on the condition of anonymity.
One plaintiff, John Doe I is said to have been accosted by ExxonMobil security personnel while riding his bicycle cart to the market to sell vegetables. The lawsuit states that they shot him in the wrist, threw a hand grenade at him, then left him for dead. The suit adds that he lost his right hand and left eye, and was killed during a raid on his village.
Another, John Doe II was stopped on the road by ExxonMobil security personnel while riding on his motorbike, and severely beaten on his head and body, it is stated. It is said that they tied his hands behind his back, blindfolded him, and trucked him to a camp where he was tortured for three months with electricity on his body, including his genitals.
At one point, the lawsuit states, he was shown a large pile of human heads and was threatened that his head would be added to the pile. Though he managed to escape, the man’s house was burned down by the security personnel hired by the oil company, the lawsuit states.
Plaintiff John Doe III was accosted by ExxonMobil security personnel on his way to visit a refugee camp, shot in three places, and taken to a camp where he was tortured while bleeding out from the gunshot wounds, it is written. His kneecap was broken, according to information, his skull was smashed and he was burned with cigarettes.
“When his wounds were treated, he was returned to the ExxonMobil security personnel. ExxonMobil security personnel kept him in custody for approximately one month and tortured him regularly. After one month, Plaintiff John Doe III was released.
In November 2002, during a raid on his village, John Doe III, who had been traumatised by the torture he received at the hands of ExxonMobil’s security forces in 2002, drowned while attempting to escape from the village during the raid.”
When Plaintiff Jane Doe 1 was pregnant, her home was invaded by a rifle-wielding member of ExxonMobil’s security personnel, who threatened to kill her and her unborn child before proceeding to beat and sexually assault her, the lawsuit states.
All of these are experiences of persons situated near ExxonMobil operations in Indonesia at the time of the attacks, the lawsuit notes. There are many more gruesome accounts of torture and pain, included in the document. (See link – https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/complaint.pdf)
The extensive suit reads that when ExxonMobil made the decision to hire the personnel, it was its management in the US who felt it necessary.
“At all times relevant herein, ExxonMobil has had the ability to supervise, control and direct, and has supervised, controlled and directed the actions and activities of its security personnel.”
It is stated that ExxonMobil conditioned payment on the provision of services, provided facilities that were used for the abuse of plaintiffs, provided weapons funding and military equipment, and paid consultants/mercenaries to provide training and intelligence to ExxonMobil security personnel.
Dauntingly, the suit states that in spite of its knowledge about the abusive nature of the Indonesian military forces and the incidents, ExxonMobil had refused demands to investigate, improve or cease its security forces’ abusive actions.
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.”
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