(Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev – AP)
President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to nominate ExxonMobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is sounding alarm bells among human rights groups. And there are good reasons for it.
Tillerson, 64, who like Trump has no government experience, is best known for his close ties with Russia’s authoritarian President Vladimir Putin, who awarded him the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship prize in 2013.
As an lifetime Exxon employee, Tillerson has befriended some of the world’s worst human rights offenders — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Ecuatorial Guinea — as part of his mission to find lucrative oil exploration or extraction deals abroad. It is often said that oil executives are not guided by ideology, but by geology, and Tillerson may be a poster boy for that saying.
Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, said that Tillerson’s nomination is “deeply troubling, and could undermine human rights in the U.S. and abroad.” Human Rights Watch, another advocacy group, said that under Tillerson, Exxon “has been hostile to U.S. laws requiring greater financial transparency and stronger human rights standards for companies — laws that the State Department has supported.”
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Etiquetas: Donald Trump, Putin, Rex Tillerson, Russia, Secretary of State
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