May the Best Puppet Win: Cocoa, Diamonds & the Ivory Coast Conflict

A very intelligent international lawyer told me last year that most of Africa's leaders needed to be hung, shot and burned at the stake for their political moves in the name of ill-gotten gain.

She said this in disgust and frustration after just visiting a West Africa country where grandmothers of poor areas took on the role of being human sewage systems by picking up the waste and trash of a community that lacked simple infrastructure that drained shit from the streets.

The underdevelopment of Africa and its subsequent conflicts have been detrimental to those who don't have guns, the civilians; women and girls who are sexually brutalized as they are left to fend for themselves when their husbands, uncles, fathers and sons leave to fight. And those youth who have been snatched from childhood and pulled into a life of drugs, alcohol, killing, and raping the same women and girls from even their own areas.

At the end of the day, those who profit from the war have not a single drop of blood on their well-tailored European suits.

Laurent Gbagbo

The reasons for African underdevelopment is complicated and long, but let me focus on the current malaise, corrupt leadership. African leadership caters to the highest bidder.

As in the case of Ivory Coast, a country that is the top supplier of cocoa to the Western World, it would beneficial to be the HNIC.

In many countries, free enterprise is dictated by how much the head of state pockets. If the head gets belly full than the business owner receives carte-blanche in all its trade and labor dealings.

When (former) President Laurent Gbagbo refuses to acknowledge his "defeat" in the recent Ivorian "democratic" election, it is not for the purpose of forwarding a country into progression; but simply carrying on with the fattening of his pockets and those of his family members and croonies.

As with internationally recognized new president, Alasanne Outtara, the ballot and the cocoa goes to the one who will share the profits. Currently being protected by

Alasanne Outtara

UN "peacekeeping" troops there are rumors that Gbagbo is planning to storm Outtara's hotel with youth rebel forces. Oh boy, I hope this is not a Liberia redux.

What happened to good old fashioned youth activities such as soccer and school? Shooting in the name of a Godiva and Belgian chocolate is not what they came to this world to do, is it?

And when much of the West steps in, it is not for the security of Africa and to ensure peaceful negotiations, but to further its control in the re-colonialization of the continent; hence AFRICOM, an American military-controlled operation that has set up headquarters throughout Africa to "assist" in conflict and others matters

Diamond Miner from the Ivory Coast

with diplomacy.


This is all to ensure that the diamonds from Liberia and other conflict areas are ushered through Ivory Coast, then taken to Burkino Faso, Mali or other places that are maintaining peace, so that these bloodied gems can receive their nice stamp of approval from DeBeers and them.

And as one Nigerian diplomat told me with unflinching conviction, only white men can resolve the issues in Africa, not Africans, and not blacks. Well, I guess my black ass and my comments don't count for shit these days, AFRICOM will solve the issues, under a gun and good old fashioned divide and conquer.

Ahhh, now I feel better, de white man done saved de day again, jus lik the movies. Yet these days, the white man is layered in pigmented skin, like Colin Powell, or packing of vagina, as in Hillary Clinton.



Conflict Diamonds

What are conflict diamonds? Conflict diamonds are diamonds that have been used to fund wars, rebellions and conflicts. These diamonds are usually from African nations that have been totally disrupted since colonialization and the removal of Africans as a result of enslavement in the Western Hemisphere.

The challenge and question by black folk around the world is that the diamond industry is controlled and operated by groups of people who funded the development of European countries and markets - - - so how in the hell do they determine as to whom and what is conflict. The diamond industry today was founded and funded on European forced domination!  But now these people become the moral compass for an industry that they created in African blood, sweat, labor and tears.


Anywho, the list below is from the fact sheet of the World Diamond Council. As you can see, most countries have conflict diamonds. So where do all these ample diamond supplies come from? Mars I hypothesize.

Diamond Producing Countries & Conflict Diamonds
Angola Conflict Diamonds
Botswana
Central African Republic Conflict Diamonds
Democratic Republic of Congo Conflict Diamonds
Ivory Coast Conflict Diamonds
Liberia Conflict Diamonds
Namibia
Republic of Congo Conflict Diamonds
Sierra Leone Conflict Diamonds
South Africa
Tanzania