INDONESIA: ExxonMobil chose to settle a 22-year-old case brought against them from Indonesian villagers last month, rather than face a day in court. The 11 villagers from Indonesia’s Aceh Province alleged that they and their family members were tortured, sexually assaulted, raped, and beaten in and around the ExxonMobil Oil and Gas Plant by the company’s hired security force in the town of Lhoksukon during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In response to political unrest in the area during Indonesia’s 20-year civil war, Exxon Mobil payed Indonesian military members more than $500,000 per month to protect its natural gas liquefaction facilities in Aceh, Indonesia. The brutal private military group came to be known to the locals as the “Exxon army” and plaintiffs in the case allege that the group regularly conducted raids on local villages, where they would round up villagers and commit a litany of human rights abuses in an effort to force false confessions out of torture victims.

According to legal experts, the company either chose to ignore or was woefully ignorant of the threat military personnel posed to civilians in the area at that time. Since the case was filed in 2001, ExxonMobil’s lawyers have tried nine times to have the case thrown out. When the case wouldn’t go away, the company opted to settle the case ahead of the official court date on May 24, which would have given the plaintiffs a chance to testify about their experiences.

Although the details of the settlement are confidential, the villagers received enough money for a bit of economic security and for some, a sense of justice, following a painfully drawn out 22 year battle. The case was advanced by Washington D.C.-based law firm International Rights Advocates, who hopes the case serves as a warning to other major corporations about their responsibility in preventing and addressing human rights violations.