INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FUND
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Munawar Zainal (c) 717-343-1598
Abigail Abrash Walton 603-357-2651
ExxonMobil Investors Tell Management to
Review Relationship with Indonesia’s Criminal Military
7.6 Percent Back New York City Pension System Resolution
Questioning Risks to Shareholders from ExxonMobil Payments to
Brutal Armed Forces
Washington, D.C. – Stockholders
of oil and gas giant ExxonMobil (New York Stock Exchange symbol:
XOM) today issued a call to action about the company’s operations
in the Indonesian province of Aceh, devastated by last December’s
tsunami. At the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Dallas,
Texas, this morning, well over 7 percent of investors (accounting
for roughly 498 million shares worth more than $27 billion) voted
in favor of a resolution calling on ExxonMobil management to report
to shareholders concerning the potential investor risks and liabilities
resulting from corporate payments to Indonesia’s notorious rights-abusing
military.
A similar resolution put before Freeport McMoRan
Copper & Gold, Inc. (NYSE symbol: FCX) shareholders on May
5 by NYC’s firefighters, teachers and police pension funds also
garnered more than 7 percent of the ballots. Both resolutions
send a strong message to corporate management and received well
above the percentage needed to carry forward similar resolutions
during next year’s shareholder season.
Urging investors to help end the violence in Aceh
by voting “yes” on the NYC resolution, Mr. Munawar Zainal, Secretary
General of the Aceh Center -- USA, told shareholders at the meeting,
“I strongly believe that ExxonMobil can influence the prospects
for peace and stability in my homeland. This will require a change
in policy and action by the company’s management, which you, as
shareholders, can encourage. Right now, Exxon Mobil’s ongoing
financial and logistical collusion with the Indonesian armed forces
provides those troops with opportunity and cover for their brutality.”
Delivering a statement on behalf of Antioch New
England Graduate School’s Faculty Senate, Ms. Elena Acosta reminded
investors that “The compensation received by the Acehnese communities
whose natural resources ExxonMobil exploits has been environmental
degradation, military occupation, and severe human rights abuses
by the Indonesian armed forces whom ExxonMobil pays to “protect”
its operations. We, as concerned shareholders, need to safeguard
our investments by ensuring that ExxonMobil does not underwrite
criminal activity.”
Copies of the New York City Pension Funds Resolution
and Statements by Mr. Zainal and Ms. Acosta are available online
at: www.stopexxonmobil.org
BACKGROUND
ExxonMobil holds a 100 percent interest in Aceh’s
Arun natural gas fields, which account – together with satellite
fields – for 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas/day or 11 percent of
ExxonMobil’s global production for 2004. The company realized
$25.33 billion dollars in profits in 2004, a world record. ExxonMobil
has provided just $8 million in tsunami relief and reconstruction
contributions or less than one-third of one percent of the company’s
2004 profits. (Its more than 100,000 employees, retirees, dealers
and distributors have contributed a total of $3 million.)
The ExxonMobil shareholder meeting takes place the
same day that newly elected Indonesian president General Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono makes his first state visit to Washington, D.C.,
to meet with President George W. Bush and members of the U.S.
Congress. ExxonMobil will host a major gala dinner reception this
evening for President Yudhoyono at Washington, D.C.’s Mandarin
Oriental Hotel. The company enjoys close relations with the Bush
Administration and with Indonesia’s senior military leadership.
The company was the top oil and gas industry contributor to the
Bush/Cheney and other Republican campaigns during the 2004 election
cycle. In December 2004, International Government Relations Manager
Robert Haines, who chairs the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council’s Indonesia
group, led an exclusive delegation of 50 senior executives from
26 major U.S. corporations to Indonesia for meetings with President
Yudhoyono and other top Indonesian economic officials.
According to the U.S. State Department and other
credible sources, Indonesian government forces have killed, tortured,
involuntarily disappeared, and arbitrarily arrested and detained
thousands of Acehense civilians. The Indonesian government largely
has closed Aceh to foreigners since the implementation of martial
law in 2003 and during the current period of civil emergency in
place since 2004, contributing significantly to the problem of
providing humanitarian aid to the victims of December’s tsunami.
ExxonMobil currently faces a lawsuit representing families and
victims of torture and murder by Indonesian troops stationed at
ExxonMobil’s Aceh facilities. Human rights investigators and journalists
have reported that the Indonesian military has used ExxonMobil
facilities to torture its victims and used company equipment to
dig mass graves for burial of murder victims.
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