Cocoa the key to Ivory Coast standoff

Cocoa is the lifeblood of Ivory Coast. Fortunes, both material and political, depend upon it. While 2010’s output is comparable to the year before’s, the cashflow it creates may not last long if political unrest flares up into fighting, and Laurent Gbagbo knows it.

The country’s cocoa growers back Ivory Coast’s leader even if few others do. Sansan Kouao is the country’s richest man:

“This is Ivory Coast’s gold, this is what makes people kill for us, the foreigners. Ouatarra is from Burkina Fasso, born here but with no Ivorian origins.”

Cocoa represents a quarter of the nation’s GDP, and half of its dominant agricultural sector. For Laurent Gbagbo, it represents a lot more, for as long as he retains the support of Kouao and his fellow cocoa growers he will be able to pay the army and resist Alessane Ouatarra’s claims on the presidency.

With Ivory Coast supplying 40 percent of the world’s raw material for chocolate, any events there can have a dramatic effect on prices.

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