The International Labour Rights Fund announced that it has sued ExxonMobil Corporation on charges it paid and directed government security forces who committed atrocities while protecting an ExxonMobil facility in Aceh, Indonesia.
The suit was filed in Washington in a US District Court on behalf of 11 residents of Aceh, under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows US jurisdiction over acts committed outside the United States.
ExxonMobil and Indonesia's state-owned oil company Pertamina exploit natural gas in the violence-torn province which lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
"ExxonMobil understood from the day it decided to begin its project in Aceh that the army units assigned to protect company wells were notoriously brutal in their treatment of Indonesia's ethnic minorities," Mr Terry Collingsworth, an attorney for the fund, said in a statement.
The suit charges that Exxon Mobil provided logistical and material support to Indonesian troops operating in Aceh province during the 1989-1998 period when former president Suharto declared it a "military operational area" in order to combat a separatist movement.
During that period Mobil Oil, which has since merged with Exxon, provided logistical and material support to Indonesian troops, which included building barracks where elite military units carried out torture, and providing excavators used to dig mass graves, the suit says.
In a statement, ExxonMobil categorically denied the charges.
"ExxonMobil condemns the violation of human rights in any form. As such, our company rejects and categorically denies any suggestion or implication that it or its affiliate companies were in any way involved with alleged human rights abuses by security forces in Aceh.
"We are deeply troubled and highly concerned about the violence in North Aceh," the statement said.
Pertamina yesterday described as misguided the human rights case against ExxonMobil.
"All matters regarding the protection of vital installations is Pertamina's responsibility based on our production-sharing contract agreement with ExxonMobil," Mr Baihaki Hakim, of Pertamina, told reporters at a press in Jakarta.
"I think it's inappropriate to say that ExxonMobil has paid [government forces] because people have no idea of the relationship between Pertamina and ExxonMobil, they are our subcontractors," Mr Hakim said.
"When it comes to matters of payment, it's Pertamina's responsibility, so feel free to file a lawsuit," he added.