Among the abuses in which Chevron was implicated at the time was the May 1998 killing of indigenous residents of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger River delta. In response to a nonviolent protest on one of its oil platforms, Chevron provided company helicopters to the notorious Nigerian Mobile Police, known as the "Kill 'n Go," who used the helicopters to conduct a deadly attack on nonviolent protesters. Chevron's head of security rode along as the the police opened fire on the delta residents, and Chevron paid the soldiers who carried out the attack. (Despite overwhelming evidence of Chevron's complicity, late last year a jury in San Francisco cleared the company of responsibility. The case is on appeal.)
During the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama rightly painted John McCain as the candidate of Big Oil, saying he was "in the pocket" of the industry, and the Democrats ran ads portraying Exxon as McCain's running mate.
But the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics pointed out,
"Tallying contributions by employees in the industry and their families ... Exxon, Chevron and BP have all contributed more money to Obama than to McCain." After his election, Obama followed in Bush's footsteps, appointing another former Chevron director, Gen. James Jones as his national security adviser. In 2008, Chevron paid Jones $290,000 for serving on its board for seven months -- from May until December.Now, the story of this slick oil company's romance with the government has taken a particularly crude twist: Last month, Chevron was given the Richard C. Holbrooke Award for Business Leadership in "recognition of the company's global public health programs." (And, no, this is not a story from The Onion.) It was first reported by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.
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