The unexpected shutdown threatens to deprive the Indonesian rulers of $1 billion in annual revenue from the lucrative field. The gas field is located in Aceh province on the island of Sumatra, one of the four major islands in the archipelago. A movement in Aceh calling for independence has won wide popular support, in part by exposing the exploitation of the area's resources to fill the coffers of foreign firms and their Indonesian co-exploiters.

The U.S.-based oil giant has complained that its pickups and vans have been hijacked 50 times since 1999, that its airplanes have come under fire, and that land mines have been planted alongside roads used by its vehicles. "Company buses carrying employees from town to the gas fields were stopped, the passengers expelled and the vehicles burned. When Indonesian soldiers in jeeps escorted the buses, they were attacked," reported the March 24 New York Times.

Discovered in 1971, the gas field at one point supplied more than a quarter of Mobil's worldwide revenue. Times journalist Wayne Arnold reported that "gas is hugely important to Indonesia, supplying a fifth of total exports and 5 percent of the government budget. But few of the riches have found their way back to Aceh."

"Especially in the early days," wrote Arnold, "all the best gas jobs tended to be filled by foreigners." The company claims that this policy has changed. "But some ill will remains over sore points like the relatively luxurious walled compound in Lhokseumawe where top employees are housed, the bars and brothels that have tended to crop up outside the gas plant, and several industrial accidents over the years that released toxic clouds and started fires," noted the reporter.

Many Acehnese accuse ExxonMobil's managers of collaborating with the military in its brutal crackdown on the independence movement. The company pays the soldiers that guard its installations and allows them to use its earthmoving equipment. According to human rights groups, these machines have been used to dig mass graves for victims of military repression.

The 1,500 troops sent to Aceh on March 15 are the "biggest security deployment in Indonesia ever to defend a vital installation," said Indonesian security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Since his election in 1999, Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has promised a greater degree of autonomy to Aceh. At the same time, he has sanctioned a continued military crackdown, largely responsible for the deaths of some 6,000 people over the past decade, most of them civilians.  
 
Labor actions on the rise
Even though the decades-long military Suharto dictatorship has been swept aside, working people still confront the security forces when they organize to defend their rights and living standards. The Indonesian Prosperity Trade Union (SBSI), which claims a membership of more than 1 million, has assembled a list of 135 complaints of violence and harassment against workers by police, soldiers, and local government officials during last year. The incidents included police gunfire aimed at striking workers and the torching of SBSI offices. "Officially," said Muchtar Pakpahan, the organization's most prominent leader, "there is freedom to associate, freedom to bargain, freedom to express. But the law on the books is different from the law in the field."

The San Francisco Chronicle reported "an incredible proliferation" of unions since Suharto's resignation. Government officials state that 36 federations and 11,467 "syndicates" have registered with the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration since mid-1998.

In an action typical of many taking place in Indonesia, more than 250 employees of PT Nagamas Busana Tama, a sock manufacturer, rode in buses to the Jakarta City Council March 6 to demand recognition of their Independent Workers Union. The workers have been on strike since February 26. They wore black shirts and headbands and unfurled posters denouncing the company's management. "The firm even established a rival union last month instead of recognizing us," said the union's secretary, Juariah.

The workers reported that they had not received the new minimum monthly wage of 426,000 rupiahs (around US$40) until February. In January, when the new level fell due, they were paid at the old rate of Rp344,000 (US$1 = 10,400 rupiahs).

In the city of Bandung, further to the west on the most populous island of Java, garment workers at PT Biba Multi Jaya marched to the provincial legislature March 7 to "condemn a cut in their biweekly wages," from Rp120,000 to between Rp60,000 and Rp70,000, reported the English-language Jakarta Post. "We do not have any other source of income. We need to know why our wages have been cut," said Ai, a worker from the finishing department.

A hard-fought strike by workers at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta has received widespread publicity outside the country. Around 500 employees out of a workforce of more than 1,000 struck the five-star hotel on December 22 and have maintained their stoppage in the face of police violence and the employer's use of replacement workers.  
 
 
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