Rice is a board member of Chevron, which props up a corrupt Nigerian military government that suppresses Ogoni activists and killed the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.
US TV program Democracy Now! covered the story in 2003.
click hereThe report included the following:
"On the ground in Nigeria, there is an oil war raging. Villagers in the oil-rich Niger Delta are rising up, demanding an end to a system that keeps them in poverty as their government pumps Nigeria’s natural resources to Western nations, enriching itself and oil executives. In unprecedented acts of resistance, villagers have seized oil rigs, barges and helicopters belonging to transnational oil corporations.
"The oil companies are fighting back. Today, we’re going to take an in-depth look at one of these cases.
"In 1998, Democracy Now! revealed for the first time that Chevron played a role in the killing of two Nigerian villagers.
"The San Francisco-based oil company helped facilitate an attack by the feared Nigerian Navy and notorious Mobile Police (MOPOL).
"In a interview with Democracy Now!, a Chevron official acknowledged that on May 28, 1998, the company transported Nigerian soldiers to their Parabe oil platform and barge in the Niger Delta, which dozens of community activists had occupied. The protestors were demanding that Chevron contribute more to the development of the impoverished oil region where they live.
-----
"Soon after landing in Chevron-leased helicopters, the Nigerian military shot to death two protesters, Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu, and wounded several others. The eleven activists were detained for three weeks.
"During their imprisonment, one activist said he was handcuffed and hung from a ceiling fan hook for hours for refusing to sign a statement written by Nigerian federal authorities.
"Nigerian activists charge that Chevron's oil operations pollute their land, severely hampering fishing and farming, their only means of livelihood. The U.S. multinational Chevron Texaco is the third largest oil producer in Nigeria. Oil money provides roughly 80 percent of the dictatorship's revenue.
"It is very clear that Chevron, just like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities. They drill and they kill," Nigerian environmental attorney Oronto Douglas told Democracy Now!."