Chocolate now fuels war in West Africa?

Government and rebel forces in Ivory Coast used the cocoa trade to fund war, says a new report.

By Blake Lambert | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 17, 2007 edition

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Abidjan, Ivory Coast - First came "blood diamonds" from Sierra Leone.

Rebels there partnered with former Liberian President Charles Taylor in the 1990s to receive weapons that they used to terrorize the population in exchange for the gems, which were sold globally to unwitting consumers.

Then came "blood timber" from Liberia.

When the UN imposed sanctions on diamond exports from Liberia in 2001 Mr. Taylor – who is now standing trial for crimes against humanity in The Hague – plundered his country's forests to bankroll his brutal, cross-border wars.

Now another West African conflict is being funded by yet another commodity beloved in the West: chocolate.

Government and rebel leaders of the world's leading cocoa exporter, Ivory Coast, both siphoned off millions of dollars from the cocoa industry to finance the 2002-03 civil war that divided the once-stable and prosperous country in two, according to a recent report from Global Witness, a London-based group that focuses on resource-fueled corruption.

The government received more than $58 million from institutions and cocoa revenues, while the rebel New Forces pocketed about $30 million since 2004 in taxes and revenues, claims the report titled "Hot Chocolate: How Cocoa fuelled the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire."

Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of the commodity, responsible for about 40 percent of global exports, which earned more than $1 billion in 2006.

Fighting here ended with the government of President Laurent Gbagbo in control of the south, where 90 percent of cocoa production takes place, and the rebel New Forces in charge of the north. The two sides signed a peace agreement in March that put rebel leader Guillaume Soro in the government as prime minister.

Global Witness not only contends the cocoa trade drove the war economy but that the industry still serves the interests of both the government and the rebels who have reaped political and economic benefits with impunity.

Yet loyalists of Mr. Gbagbo's government reacted to the findings with more bemusement than anger.

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Click to enlarge Rich Clabaugh – Staff