Date:         Thu, 9 Sep 1999 00:09:02 -0700
Reply-To:     harald_nancy <harald_nancy@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         harald_nancy <harald_nancy@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: Mobil Oil and Indonesian massacres?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi Steven,
Thanks for responding and your input.

The full "Business Week" article, "What did Mobil know?"
December 28, 1998 can be found at
http://bwarchive.businessweek.com/search.cgi?id=&m=

The link that I posted was a free (no fee) recap of the original;
(since the original article is copyrighted)
however, I am not a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and
I wasn't aware (my fault) that "The Final Call"
is published by him. Otherwise, I would have searched
for a less controversial link.
Perhaps in time, we'll find out more about Mobil's possible
involvement in all this.

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and
you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong
which will be imposed on them" -- Frederick Douglass

Harald
'90 westy

Steven wrote:
>  Before anyone starts boycotting Mobil, I think it's worth noting
> the following:
>
>   - "The Final Call" is published by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation
>     of Islam.  I certainly do not wish to provoke any debate in this
mailing
>     list regarding Mr. Farrakhan, so I will confine myself to the facts
>     that:
>         (1) Mr. Farrakhan and his views are extremely controversial, and
>         (2) Since "The Final Call" bills itself as "The official
> communications
>             organ of the Nation of Islam", it reports from a rather
> distinctive
>             point of view.
>
>   - Based on what it says in the "Final Call" article:
>         (1) Mobil is facing "allegations"; that is, it apparently has not
>             at this time been found guilty of any complicity or
wrongdoing
>             in the horrifying Indonesian masacres.  If I boycotted every
>             company that had "allegations" of wrongdoing against it, I'd
>             have to stop shopping altogether.
>         (2) The massacres occured near (not on) a drilling site in
>             which Mobil owns a minority share; the majority, controlling
>             share is owned by the Indonesian government, which is
>             accused of the massacres.
>         (3) The only evidence supplied of complicity or wrongdoing
>             by Mobil is the statement of one Mobil employee that
>             "rumors ... and unconfirmed reports" had been discussed
>             at work.
>         (4) There are allegations that Mobil-owned equipment
>             bulldozers, etc.) was used in the massacres, but no
>             clear allegations that Mobil knew about it or authorized it.
>         (5) Mobil provided food and supplies to soldiers who guarded
>             the drilling site.
>
> Now, Mobil may be guilty as can be, or it may be innocent as
> a baby, but based on the rather weakly supported accusations
> in this article, and a personal bias toward "innocent until proven
> guilty", I think I'll wait for more substantial evidence before
> draining the Mobil One out of the ol' crankcase.
>
>                                                 -Steven Sittser