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OPINION
Exxon in Aceh: America's double
standard
By Steve Kretzmann
Although it's been two weeks since President
George W Bush signed the Corporate Responsibility Act,
his administration showed its true stripes on corporate
crime last week - and they look a lot like the Exxon
tiger's. Just as the Justice Department is beginning to
investigate possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act by Enron's overseas ventures, the State
Department is busy asking a federal judge to dismiss a
lawsuit against ExxonMobil for its alleged complicity in
human-rights violations in Indonesia.
Either the
Bush administration considers bribing foreign officials
to be worse than complicity in murder, or there's
something else going on here. The administration's
pressure to dismiss the suit against ExxonMobil has
everything to do with their fear of economic and
political retaliation by Indonesia, and little or
nothing to do with corporate accountability, human
rights or justice.
The suit alleges that
Indonesian military troops committed "genocide, murder,
torture, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, and
kidnapping" while providing security for ExxonMobil's
natural-gas project in Indonesia's conflict-ridden Aceh
province. ExxonMobil allegedly aided and abetted these
abuses by paying, feeding, housing and generally
supporting the security forces.
In a July 29
letter to Federal Judge Louis F Oberdorfer, State
Department counsel William H Taft IV acknowledges that
while his argument "does not address the legal issues
before the court", the "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 war on terrorism".
In other words, the
United States shouldn't investigate a US corporation
accused of complicity in terrorism, because it might get
in the way of the war on terror.
But there are
other concerns. In mid-July, Indonesia's ambassador to
the US sent a letter to the State Department that noted
ominously that the lawsuit "will definitely compromise
the serious efforts of the Indonesian government to
guarantee the safety of foreign investments, including
in particular those from the United States".
Two
weeks later, this threat was dutifully relayed by State
Department to Judge Oberdorfer. But if ExxonMobil can't
operate in a region without relying on an army that even
the Bush administration admits is guilty of human-rights
abuses, the company probably shouldn't be there in the
first place.
Perhaps the most ironic assertion
by the Bush administration is that US corporations
remain a model for the rest of the world to follow.
"Working side-by-side with US firms, Indonesian
companies and government agencies see the advantages of
modern business practices, including transparency,
respect for contracts, fair labor practices,
anti-corruption, efficiency, and competitiveness."
"Modern business practices" hardly include
paying, feeding, and housing troops who allegedly
torture the local population. And the idea of US
corporations teaching others anti-corruption measures
is, to put it diplomatically, somewhat less credible
today than it was before corporate America began to
implode.
The administration's support for
ExxonMobil is heavy-handed, but hardly unique. Since the
Ronald Reagan years, the promotion of US business
interests abroad has been a top foreign-policy goal.
Billions of dollars in subsidies have been allocated to
such companies as ExxonMobil and Enron by public
institutions such as the Overseas Private Investment
Corp (OPIC) and the World Bank. These institutions often
give a veneer of respectability to corporate-driven
projects, while simultaneously minimizing local
environmental and human-rights concerns.
So far,
ExxonMobil's alleged crimes have only directly hurt
foreigners. For many years this was the case with Enron
too, as people from India, the Dominican Republic and
Mozambique tried to tell us. Despite credible evidence
of human-rights abuses and corruption by Enron in those
countries, US government agencies weighed in heavily on
the side of US corporate interests. Only when Enron
collapsed on its workers and investors at home did
government agencies and lawmakers wake up to begin to
tackle the issue of corporate corruption and crime. If
these efforts are to be meaningful, they have to apply
equally to crimes outside the United States.
US
corporations operate globally - US justice should, too.
Stephen Kretzmann is a policy analyst
focusing on the oil industry at the Institute for Policy
Studies in Washington, DC.
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