Exxon case ruling answer to RI’s irresponsiveness: Kontras

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), a human rights NGO based in Jakarta, has applauded a recent US court ruling giving the green light to 15 villagers in Aceh to sue the US-based oil and gas company Exxon Mobil Corp. for allegedly abetting and aiding torture, murder and sexual assault.
 
A US federal appeals court in Washington on Friday said Exxon was not immune from liability under a US law known as the Alien Tort Statute for “heinous conduct” allegedly committed by hired agents, reportedly personnel of the Indonesian Military (TNI), in violation of human rights norms.
 
The outcome was the most-recent development in a lawsuit filed by the 15 villagers in 2001, and another one in 2007. A lower court in Washington in 2009 ruled that the villagers didn’t have the right to sue Exxon in a US court because they were not US residents, but the verdict was overturned by the last week’s ruling by the federal court.
 
“The US court has implemented the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’ in human rights cases. Such cases do not have limitations in terms of time and territory,” Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar said on Wednesday in a press statement.
 
“In the context of Indonesia, the ruling can be seen as the answer to the lack of political will by the Indonesian government in taking care of unresolved human rights cases. In other words, the US court has taught Indonesia to correct the absence of the pro-human rights politics,” he added.
 
The 15 villagers contended in their lawsuit that family members had been killed and others “beaten, burned, shocked with cattle prods, kicked and subjected to other forms of brutality and cruelty” amounting to torture in Aceh between 1999 and 2001, a period of civil unrest.
 
The plaintiff said Exxon was responsible for the abuses because they were committed by an Indonesian military unit dedicated only to Exxon’s Aceh facility and under the company’s direction and control.
 
Agnieszka Fryszman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an email sent to the Post on Sunday that a trial was the next step, “so that we can present our evidence to a jury and get justice for our clients who have been waiting a long time”.
 
Exxon spokesman Patrick McGinn told Bloomberg that the company had “fought these baseless claims for many years” and was reviewing the decision.