Elaine Monaghan, Washington – The United States has told a US court that a human rights-related lawsuit filed by Indonesian villagers against Exxon Mobil could hurt the war on terror, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The intervention could kill the case filed by the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of 11 villagers in the Indonesian province of Aceh, the Financial Times newspaper, which first reported on the issue, said on Monday.
The villagers claim that Exxon Mobil, which operates a natural gas field in Aceh, paid and directed Indonesian security forces that murdered, tortured and raped as they protected the firm's operations in the 1990s, the daily said.
Exxon Mobil denied the allegations in the case, filed under a law letting foreigners hold US firms accountable in US courts for violations of international law, the paper said.
In the letter, State Department legal adviser William Taft repeats US condemnations of human rights abuses in Indonesia but says its cooperation with Jakarta in all areas, including human rights, could be hurt by the lawsuit.
"The Department of State believes that adjudication of this lawsuit at this time would in fact risk a potentially serious adverse impact on significant interests of the United States, including interests related directly to the ongoing struggle against international terrorism," Taft wrote.
The United States has embarked on a course of resuming military ties with Indonesia, whose army has a history of alleged human rights abuses, notably in East Timor. Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a visit to Jakarta on Friday, announced about $50 million in aid to help Indonesia's security forces fight terrorism.
Because of concerns about the army's rights record, the vast majority of the money will go to building a modern police force. The Pentagon will spend $8 million on the army over 2002 and 2003 and $400,000 will go to training the army out of next year's budget only if Congress approves.
The July 29 letter was written to a District Court in Washington in response to a May 10 letter from the court.
Taft warned that the litigation was likely to discourage further foreign investment, noting that oil and gas revenues had made up 19 percent, 23 percent and 31 percent of government revenue in Indonesia in 1998, 1999 and 2000 respectively.
He said he was enclosing a letter from the Indonesian ambassador to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage saying that Jakarta saw the lawsuit as an "unacceptable" act that would complicate efforts to safeguard foreign investors and hurt Indonesia's struggle for economic recovery.
Anthony Zinni, a retired US general who has served as Washington's special envoy to the Middle East, was scheduled to be in Aceh on Tuesday.
The province has been the scene of unrelenting separatist violence, and Zinni was due to meet rebels and military officials under the auspices of the Henry Dunant Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, which has mediated two years of largely unsuccessful peace talks between the sides.