VIRTUAL TRUTH COMMISSION: MOBIL OIL

VIRTUAL TRUTH COMMISSION: MOBIL OIL

Virtual Truth Commission

General

Legal Peril for Multinationals with Human Rights Abuses. In Doe v. Unocal Corp, 1997, Unocal Corp. and Total S. A. were held liable under the ATCA, an original part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, by acting in concert with a foreign government (Burma) in violating universally recognized human rights standards. "The ATCA states: "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." Therefore, under ATCA, aliens -- in this case Burmese citizens who alleged that government police forces carried out a program of violence, torture, rape, forced relocation and forced labor against the Burmese farmers living on the route of a pipeline being built as part of a Unocal-Total project -- could sue the U. S. companies in U. S. court, and successfully did so. Joseph D. Pizzurro and Nancy E. Delaney, "Litigation: New Peril for Companies Doing Business Overseas" -- Alien Tort Claims Act Interpreted Broadly. New York Law Journal, November 24, 1997.

Environmental Concerns

Mobil owns a pipeline jointly with the Nigerian State Oil company (NNPC). In January 1998 Mobil acknowledged a offshore spill of light crude oil from this pipeline Mobil Admits Oil Spillage Off Nigeria Coast

Power Position

Nigeria is important to world energy markets because it is an OPEC member and one of the world's top ten oil exporters. The country is a major oil supplier to both the United States and Western Europe. LKJ Associates Country Analysis Nigeria

It is worth restating that two U.S. companies, Mobil and Chevron, produce nearly half of Nigeria's oil, while the single largest producer, Shell, is also vulnerable to U.S. pressure because the U.S. is its single largest profit center. The U.S. therefore has the capacity to act effectively and unilaterally against Nigeria. A Proposal to Impose Sanctions on Nigeria by Jennifer Davis, The Africa Fund Presented to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York January 30, 1998

Mobil and other oil multinationals have enormous clout, insisted Cordelia Kokori, because "the Nigerian government eats, breathes and sleeps oil." In an emotive speech, she appealed directly to Noto to help bring about the release of her father, Frank Kokori. He is the General Secretary of Nigerian oil and gas workers' NUPENG, and he has been held without charge or trial by the Nigerian regime since 1994. His colleague Milton Dabibi, General Secretary of Nigerian oil and gas workers' union PENGASSAN, has similarly been detained without charge or trial since January 1996. Both men's health is continuing to deteriorate. Both are recognised by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience. Cordelia Kokori told the Mobil shareholders that she could not now return to Nigeria, as she would immediately be arrested. "I don't know when I will see my father and mother again." The other Nigerian speaker at yesterday's meeting was Hafsat Abiola. Her father, detained politician Moshood Abiola, is thought to have won the Nigerian presidential elections that were annulled by the regime in 1993. Her mother, Kudirat Abiola, was also a politically prominent Nigerian. Kudirat was gunned down in 1996 while campaigning for her husband's release. Oil money "purchased the guns to assassinate my mother," Hafsat Abiola told Noto. Nigerian Detainees: Mobil Mobilizes

Efforts to have multi-national oil companies, among other corporations operating in Nigeria has also met with limited success at best. While meetings have occurred with Shell, Shell USA and Mobil Shell USA has maintained its defense that it is not involved and has no influence on Shell Nigeria. At the same time Shell has begun making preparations to return to business in Ogoniland. Amnesty International: Nigeria -- Year of Shame

Points of Vulnerability

Letter to SEC re Exxon-Mobil merger

Shareholders are pressing US-based oil multinational Mobil to review its investments in Nigeria in the light of continuing human rights violations there. ICEM 98 03 30

A shareholder resolution pressing Mobil to review its investments in Nigeria in the light of continuing human rights violations there was introduced at the Mobil annual meeting at Farifax, Virginia. The two Mobil shareholders tabling the motion were Franklin Research and Development Corporation, a US-based socially responsible investment firm with 500 million US dollars in client assets, and the Service Employees International Union Master Trust. Also backed by New York City's pension funds, another important Mobil shareholder, the motion asked the board of directors to review and develop guidelines for company investments in countries where "there is a pattern of ongoing and systematic violation of human rights; a government is illegitimate; there is a call by human right advocates, pro-democracy organisations or legitimately elected representatives for economic sanctions; and Mobil's long-term financial performance may be potentially threatened by international criticism, economic sanctions and boycotts by consumers and local governments." Nigerian Detainees: Mobil Mobilizes

The resolution notes that all of these factors are in place in Nigeria. Mobil is in direct partnership with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and has made payments, including royalties, fees and taxes, to the military government. The resolution further notes that the UN's International Labour Organisation has found Nigeria in violation of internationally-accepted labour standards and has demanded the release of Kokori, Dabibi and others held incommunicado without charge or trial. Nigerian Detainees: Mobil Mobilizes

In one case so far in the oil industry, a US company has confirmed it is meeting with Indonesia's state oil concern Pertamina to disclose the shareholdings in its production-sharing contracts. A spokesman for Mobil Oil Indonesia Inc., a unit of Mobil Corp., said Pertamina "is checking who we are working with." The spokesman confirmed that PT Humpuss Patragas, a company controlled by Mr. Suharto's youngest son, Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, has a stake in one of Mobil's contracts for producing liquefied natural gas. Our men in Jakarta

The continued war in Algeria has been all but ignored in the West, although France has been actively supporting Zeroual's goverment with the granting of soft loans. Human rights organisations have been trying to draw attention to the crisis for years, and only recently the Vatican denounced the West's "ice-cold indifference to the unprecedented abyss of death" in Algeria. Questions will also be asked as to the wisdom of continued oil operations in the country by multinational companies - which include big names like BP, Elf, Exxon, Mobil and Total. Algeria has the world's 14th largest reserves of oil and fifth largest reserves of gas, and is a crucial player on the energy scene. Two hundred massacred as Algerian terror reaches capital city; 24 September 1997

Indonesia

Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS. Mobil and the Killing Fields of Aceh

Aceh provides an estimated 30 percent of Indonesia's total oil and gas exports or 11 percent of the country's total exports. An estimated 39,000 people have disappeared since the region was placed under military occupation in 1980, according to local activists. In Bukit Sentang, after an estimated 150 bodies were found earlier this year, Baharuddin Lopa, secretary general of the Indonesian government-backed National Commission on Human Rights, said: "This proves that Aceh has been a killing field". One male whose body was dug up had been blindfolded, dressed only in underwear, with his arms bound behind his back by an army belt. The area of the graves, an expanse of scrub between a forest and an oil palm plantation, is nicknamed 'Lubang Neraka', meaning the 'Holes of Hell' by local people.
Mass killings and disappearances near the Mobil drilling site had been rumoured for a decade, ever since the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement), a local separatist group, began to attack Mobil installations in 1980. Mass graves suggest a brutal war on local Indonesian guerillas in the oil giant's backyard', and investigators are probing allegations that Mobil helped Indonesia's armed forces in massacres near Mobil drilling sites in the province of Aceh, northern Sumatra. Mobil owns 35 percent of P.T. Arun, a liquefied natural-gas producer in Aceh while Pertamina, Indonesia's state-owned oil monopoly, holds the controlling 55-percent stake. Earlier this year the Human Rights Commission substantiated these rumours when they began to exhume the bodies of hundreds of people, who had been tortured and killed, from a dozen graves.
In December, 1998, Business Week published a six-page feature on the company titled: 'What did Mobil Know? The Business Week article begins with a gruesome picture of an Indonesian soldier examining a skull dug up from a mass grave. The article quotes Mobil's denials but also points out that the company admitted providing food, fuel and digging equipment for the soldiers who guarded the region for three decades. One former Mobil employee told Business Week rumours of massacres and unconfirmed reports that Mobil equipment was being used to dig graves were frequently discussed at workplaces and in a company cafeteria. "Every time I drove out there (Bukit Sentang), the subcontractors stopped my car. They said, `No, don't go out there. Don't you know the army is killing people and burying them in mass graves with Mobil equipment?" he said.
On Oct. 10, a coalition of 17 Indonesian human rights organizations issued a statement saying Mobil was "responsible for human rights abuses" by providing crucial logistic support to the army, including earth-moving equipment that was used to dig mass graves. This declaration prompted Business Week to send journalists to do detailed on-the-spot interviews with local people. Yusuf Kasim, a local farmer who spoke to Business Week, said the army paid him four US dollars a night to stand guard over a borrowed excavator to prevent anyone from siphoning fuel from its tank. He said he watched soldiers execute 60 to 70 blindfolded Acehnese men at a time with M-16 rifles, shooting them in the back so they tumbled face-first into a mass grave across a rice field from his house. The publication of the Business Week article caused a stir: the National Human Rights Commission announced on Christmas Eve that it would launch an investigation. "We have to learn whether this information is accurate and clarify these reports," said Mohammed Salim, a member of the commission.
Michael Robinson, a press spokesman for Mobil at its Virginia headquarters, told IPS the company was not willing to discuss the matter beyond a short official statement. "Mobil strongly denies the implications contained in the article, which are based largely on unsubstantiated allegations, rumours and innuendo about allegations that took place outside Mobil's operations and control," ran the statement.
But activists like George Ajitondro, an Indonesian academic who lives in exile, say Mobil's operations have also devastated local communities who depend on agriculture and fish farming, through forced relocations, numerous oil and industrial spills into the rivers, sea and bay, erosion of their riverside gardens and extreme noise pollution. Indeed, gas explosions have plagued communities for more than 20 years. As recently as December 1997, some 1,600 people had to flee from their homes after three natural gas wells erupted, spewing tonnes of mud over their villages near Tanjungkarang and Dalam. Nine houses collapsed and 188 were damaged as a result. In mid-1991, it was reported that around 60 percent of fisherfolk in traditional villages in the Lhokseumawe area were living below the poverty line, and were even close to starvation, because of critically low catches over the previous three years. These environmental disasters are among the major reasons why local people have complained about Mobil.
The Ijaw and Ogoni people in Nigeria have complained about Mobil, as have the Acehnese in Sumatra. Like the Acehnese, the Ogoni and the Ijaw have suffered greatly for raising their voices against the oil companies. If nothing else, the public spotlight on Mobil has emboldened some local communities. Earlier this month four inhabitants of Desa Ampeh in North Aceh took Mobil Indonesia to court for 10 billion rupiah (1.33 million dollars) for forcibly taking their land and a cemetery to use as an airfield. But Mobil's Robinson says that he believes that the lawsuit has no implications for the U.S. parent company. "We couldn't have taken anything from anyone in Indonesia, because we don't own anything in Indonesia, no land, not even a car."
Source: Pratab Chatterjee, "Oil Giant Accused of Aiding Army Atrocities," San Francisco, Dec 29, IPS.

Mobil Operations in Sumatra (Indonesia) Investigated as Villagers Sue M Taib Ali, M Yunus Kamil, Tgk Hasballah and M Talib are sueing Mobil Indonesia for 10 billion rupiah ( US $1.33 million) for taking their land and for taking over a cemetery to use as an airfield at P. T. Arun, a liquified natural-gas producer....The lawsuit was launched just as investigations indicate that Mobil staff may have knowna bout torture, massacres and mass burial by the Kopassus, the most elite and murderous arm of the Indonesian military, which took place next to Mobil's oil drilling operations. As many as 39,000 people are believed to have disappeared from the area over the last two decades...On October 10 1998 a coalition of 17 Indonesian human rights organizations issued a statement saying that the Mobil is "responsible for human rights abuses" by providing crucial logistic support to the army, including earth-moving equipment that was used to dig mass graves. Mobil flatly denies this.

Human Rights Commitments

Mobil mobilises. Oil multinational talks of democracy. Oil multinational Mobil will raise issues of democracy and human rights with Nigeria's military regime. ICEM 98 05 15

The shareholder resolution was opposed by Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, but nevertheless garnered more than the 6 percent of shareholder votes needed to reintroduce it next year if necessary. The resolution was introduced by Franklin Research and Development Corporation whose spokesman Simon Billenness emphasised that Noto in promising to raise issues of democracy and human rights with Nigeria's military regime in autumn, 1998, "specifically committed to bringing up the cases of Milton Dabibi, Frank Kokori and other prisoners. "This is what we've been pressing Mobil to do," Billenness said. He felt "sure that Mobil will live up to its commitment." Nigerian Detainees: Mobil Mobilizes

"Mobil's new pledge is certainly very welcome, and we congratulate them on their clear view of their own longer-term interests in Nigeria," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "We also congratulate the ICEM's American affiliates on their continuing campaign of pressure for our Nigerian brothers' release. "The other major oil companies operating in Nigeria should now publicly make the same commitment as Mobil. The ICEM also renews its call to the world's governments to impose sanctions on Nigeria, including an oil boycott, unless the regime moves immediately to release the detainees and to restore full human rights, including trade union rights. In particular, we call on the heads of government of the G8 countries, meeting in England this weekend, to announce decisive and effective sanctions against the Nigerian regime until the repression ceases." The Nigerian Unions NUPENG and PENGASSAN, are affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which is leading a worldwide campaign to secure Dabibi's and Kokori's release. Nigerian Detainees: Mobil Mobilizes > See also ICEM at avenue Emile de Beco 109, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. (tel.+32.2.6262020 fax +32.2.6484316) or email

Turkmenistan

Mobil Oil became the first U.S.-based energy company to sign a production-sharing agreement with the Turkmen government on July 10, 1998. On July 31, the State Department spokesperson James P. Rubin congratulated the Turkmen government for awarding the Enron Corporation a contract for another $750,000 pipeline feasibility study�paid for with a grant by the U.S.T.D.A. During the same month, the U.S. government announced its intention to triple U.S. aid to Turkmenistan without placing any conditionality on funding to ensure respect for human rights. In August and September three more domestic critics of the Turkmen government were beaten and detained. Widespread abuses such as torture, arbitrary detention, and press censorship continued. Corporations and Human Rights, a survey by Human Rights Corporation as part of their World Report 1999.

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Updated January 4, 1999