Bitter cocoa

The debate on conflict resources is mostly about extractive natural resources, such as metals, minerals and energy sources, i.e. gold, iron ore, diamonds and oil. Some of these natural treasures, such as diamonds and gold are particularly well suited for financing conflicts. Rebel groups can mine them (or have them mined) without much ado, they are very valuable, and demand is high on the international markets.

But rebels also used other kinds of natural resources to pay for their armed struggle. Since the state collapse in Somalia, for instance, the changing warring parties have financed their needs by cultivating and selling bananas, khat (a regional everyday stimulant) and charcoal.

A decisive factor for their suitability is that the natural resources achieve high prices when sold to international markets. This gives armed groups the opportunity to obtain foreign currency with which they can pay for their weapons and ammunition. In Côte d’Ivoire (West Africa), for instance, it was not only the cultivation, trafficking and sale of cacao that contributed to the income of the conflicting parties but also the fact that grievances in the governance of the cacao sector exacerbated the divide in society to such a degree that they led to the rebellion of 2002.

For Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa is an important economic factor. Even though state income from the oil industry has overtaken the cocoa sector since 2006, its share is still 40 per cent. Furthermore, it offers an income to hundreds of thousands of cocoa farmers and their families.

Cocoa production was decisive when it came to establishing the regional economic power of Côte d’Ivoire. Under its first President Felix Houphouet-Boigny (who governed from 1960 to 1993), its economy prospered, and cocoa production was expanded. To cope with the work-intensive cocoa farming, numerous work migrants were welcomed to the country. Migrants from neighbouring countries and other regions not only worked in the cocoa plantations in the west of the country but also bought a large part of the cultivated areas to become financially independent. For a long time, the local population was happy to have them work the land as they themselves preferred to hunt and fish.

The drop in world market prices for cocoa in the 1980s hit Côte d’Ivoire hard. As the export of cocoa was the main pillar of the country's economic performance, the low prices nearly resulted in state bankruptcy. As a consequence, structural adjustment programmes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were introduced.

At the same time, the political landscape started to change. While Houphouet-Boigny governed as an autocrat, the first pluralistic elections took place in 1990 which granted him democratic legitimation. After the death of the president in 1993, the fight for political power erupted.

In the context of political discussions and economic decline, the question of identity (Ivorians against immigrants) entered into the agenda. Immigrants from the cocoa plantations were the main targets. At the time of a flourishing economy, they were offered tenures for their cocoa plantations. With the economic crisis and a rising unemployment rate in the cities, the former inhabitants returned to the villages and wanted to have the land back.

This 'conflict of identity' had a great influence o n the elections of 1995. The concept of "Ivoirité" meant that migrants were not allowed to vote. Only persons whose parents came from Côte d’Ivoire were permitted to stand as a candidate in the election. Based on this, candidates from the opposition were excluded from the election.

The same questions of identity and nationality gave rise to the rebellion, which started in 2002 with an attempted coup by parts of the army. It led to a civil war that, for nearly ten years, cut the country in half—into the south ruled by the government and the north that was controlled by the rebels. Only the parliamentary elections in November 2010 did de facto reunite the country.

But the cocoa sector was not only a driver for the cause of the conflict. During the fighting and, in particular, during the long stalemate between the north and the south, both the government and the rebels used the revenues from the cocoa sector to stabilize their respective positions.

The government under President Gbagbo spent its income from the cocoa sector on fighting the rebels, diverting funds from the numerous agencies that were supposed to support the cocoa farmers and the organization of this economic sector. At the same time, cronyism prospered under Gbagbo. The corrupt heads of agencies were able to get rich, which was the incentive for their loyalty to the regime.

The United Nations assume that the government used a large part of the income from the cocoa sector for military expenditures. In a critical phase of the civil war, in December 2002, the government received US $20.3 million from the cocoa regulatory authorities, which amounted to 20 per cent of the military budget between September 2002 and December 2003. These payments were explicitly endorsed by the international cocoa exporting companies, such as ADM, Barry-Callebaut, Cargill, etc., who were part of the governing body of the regulatory authority BCC and who considered this to be 'a contribution to peace'. According to the UN Group of Experts, in 2003, too, levies paid by the cocoa agency and taxes amounting to US $2.3 billion were used to meet rising military expenditures. According to a 2005 EU audit report, the office of the president received US-Dollar 20.3 million from the cocoa authorities for "issues of sovereignty"—yet another fee to support the regime.

The control over the trade in cocoa was an important source of income for the rebels through which they could build and maintain their structures. Ten per cent of the Ivorian cocoa is produced in the north of the country, which has been held by the rebels of the Forces Nouvelles since the beginning of the civil war in 2002. They have stopped the delivery of cocoa to the harbours of the south from which it would have usually been exported abroad. Instead, they had cocoa beans moved into the neighbouring countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea for further processing. They even established a new agency to organize this and to levi taxes on the illegal trade, called "la centrale". Each lorry load of cocoa beans had to have a laissez-passer of la centrale and had to pay further fees. Since 2004, the control over the illegal trade in cocoa alone has provided the rebels with an annual average income of US $24 million. With this income, the rebels did not only buy military equipment, pay the soldiers and bribes to maintain loyalty, but they also became very rich.

Natural resources and conflicts

Bitter cocoa - Agricultural products as conflict resources

Bitter cocoa

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