Chocolate war erupts in Côte d'Ivoire

[dArKeR]

The killers struck just before midnight. With speed and method, they went from house to house smashing open doors and windows and shooting families in their beds.

Weeks later, blood remained visible on the walls as the village of Broudoume mourned its 12 dead and tended its wounded. A martyrs' cemetery was dug and there was talk of vengeance.

It could be any one of Africa's wars where political and ethnic tension is stoked by competition for natural resources. Except that this is Côte d'Ivoire and the fight is not for gold or diamonds or timber or oil. It is for chocolate.

Cocoa plantations from this west African state supply the raw ingredient for almost half the world's chocolate, worth an estimated $350-million a year, which means there is wealth and power to be reaped from the yellow, green and red pods.

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