No Lives for Oil? How About Lives for Chocolate?

It seems that things are not looking rosy for Ivory Coast's president, Laurent Gbagbo. There is a lot of international pressure for him to step down after a disputed vote nearly a month ago. Being president of a country is not something that most people would give up easily and Gbagbo seems to be no exception. After nullifying large portions of the collected vote, especially in areas where his opponent did well, Gbagbo decided to hold on his third five-year presidential term, the fact that the countries constitution limits the president to only two terms did not bother him all that much. Various countries in the African Union are contemplating removing him by using military force. An invasion would be catastrophic in terms of lives lost and heaping even more misery on an already impoverished land.

The only reason that Gbagbo is able to maintain power is because of the loyalty of the military, and as long as he can continue to pay them he will continue to hold on to their loyalty. It would seem that putting an embargo on the country would limit the amount of money that Gbagbo had at his disposal, he would not be able to buy loyalty from his troop, lose their support, and be (relatively) peaceably removed from power. A limited embargo has been put on Ivory Coast and does indeed limit the amount of money that he has to pay his troops. He does, however, have enough for at least three more months.

Where does he get this money? Cocoa. Ivory Coast produces over 40% of the worlds supply. If we have an embargo on Ivory Coast why are they able to sell the world cocoa? Business interests have lobbied hard to make sure that the cocoa is not affected by the embargo. This was not a decision made for humanitarian reasons, it was not made for political reasons. It was made for reasons of profit. Businesses do not want to lose money by raising the price of candy bars. Instead of Gbagbo losing his support by not being able to pay his troops, military action is being contemplated. Soldiers and civilians will lose their lives, villages will be ravaged, but the cost of candy bars will at least be stable.

While I am certainly not a political scientist or economist, this simply seems horribly wrong. Another case of lobbying run amok.