[A-List] US imperialism: Indonesia, Burma

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

The second item may be of particular interest here given that, during the
1990s under CEO Dick Cheney, Halliburton was engaged in extensive dealings
with the Burmese military regime.


US tries to halt rights lawsuit
By Edward Alden in Washington
Financial Times; Aug 06, 2002

The US is trying to quash a human rights lawsuit launched by Indonesian
villagers against Exxon Mobil, claimingit could undermine the war on
terrorism.

The State Department said the action alleging complicity in human rights
abuses by the oil group could also have a "potentially serious adverse
impact" on US interests.

The lawsuit was filed last year by the International Labour Rights Fund on
behalf of 11 villagers in the Indonesian province of Aceh. They claim Exxon
Mobil, which operates a natural gas field in the province, paid and directed
Indonesian security forces that carried out murder, torture and rape in the
course of protecting the company's operations in the 1990s.

Exxon Mobil has denied the allegations, and a company spokesman said
yesterday that the charges are "completely without merit".

The State Department's intervention could kill the case, which was filed
under a law that lets foreigners use US courts to hold US companies
accountable for violating international law. A similar case against mining
company Rio Tinto was dismissed this year when Washington said it might harm
US interests in Papua New Guinea.

Addressing the US district court in Washington, the State Department's top
legal adviser wrote that a decision against Exxon "would . . . risk a
potentially serious adverse impact on significant interests of the US,
including interests directly related to the struggle against international
terrorism".

The letter, released by plaintiffs yesterday, warns that Indonesia is so
concerned about the secessionist movement in Aceh - where support for
radical Islam is strong - that court interference could impair relations
with the US.

Washington also says the lawsuit could discourage foreign investment in
Indonesia. That would hurt government revenues and weaken a key US ally.
Exxon Mobil lawyers had argued for the US to intervene on foreign policy
grounds.

Mila Rosenthal of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights said Washington's
action suggested "that the war on terrorism is now going to be used as a
cover for all kinds of corporate malfeasance".

She noted the intervention came 18 months after the State Department
persuaded many US and UK oil and mining companies to agree to stem abuses by
security forces protecting overseas operations. Exxon-Mobil did not to sign
up to the voluntary principles.

-----

Unocal wants government to quash labour lawsuit
By Edward Alden in Washington
Financial Times; Aug 09, 2002

Unocal, the US oil company, told a California court yesterday that American
foreign policy interests could be harmed by a lawsuit that alleges the
company used forced labour in Burma.

The move comes just days after the US government warned a Washington DC
court that a pending lawsuit against Exxon Mobil over alleged abuses in
Indonesia would hinder the war on terrorism and jeopardise foreign
investment in a key ally.

Unocal lawyers asked the court to seek a similar State Department opinion,
saying that many of the arguments in the Exxon case were "equally
applicable" to its case.

By seeking to penalise a US company investing in a country with a record of
human rights abuses, the litigation could "have a chilling effect on
investment and efforts to induce the home country to improve human rights",
Unocal said in its submission to the court.

The Unocal request has raised new fears among human rights groups that the
State Department's actions in the Exxon case could quash further efforts to
use domestic courts to sue US companies over alleged abuses in their
overseas operations.

The Unocal lawsuit, filed on behalf of Burmese villagers, alleges the
company used forced labour in the construction of a pipeline. Unocal has
denied the charges.

The case is set to go to trial this autumn, the first of about a dozen
similar cases to reach that stage.

But the State Department's intervention in the Exxon case has raised serious
questions about whether Washington will now systematically try to discourage
the courts from trying US companies over abuses abroad.

Human rights groups say the State Department's action contrasts sharply with
commitments it made in December 2000, when it launched an initiative aimed
at ending human rights abuses by security forces protecting oil and mining
companies in the developing world. The Exxon lawsuit, which alleges that
Indonesian security forces hired by the company were responsible for murder,
torture and rape in the 1990s, was one of several high-profile cases that
the joint US-UK initiative was aimed at addressing.

"It is the height of hypocrisy for the State Department to publicly promote
principles for the oil and gas industry and then tell a judge that the
scrutiny of an oil company's human rights record runs counter to foreign
policy," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The State Department letter came after a heated debate inside the agency,
with its human rights bureau arguing that US intervention in the case would
mar US credibility on issues of corporate social responsibility. But other
officials are worried that the spate of court cases is angering US allies
and interfering with the government's foreign policy authority.

The cases have been filed under a 200-year-old law called the Alien Tort
Claims Act, which has been interpreted by some US courts to allow lawsuits
if US companies violate international laws abroad.

The department's legal affairs office, headed by William Howard Taft IV,
"saw an irresistible opportunity to strike a blow against the Alien Tort
Claims Act," said a former State Department official.