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"Who knew the simple chocolate bar could be so complicated? It is when it&amp;#039;s made from cocoa from one of Africa&amp;#039;s most troubled nations, Ivory Coast. The past decade hasn&amp;#039;t been particularly kind to   the West African nation and, once again, the country of 23 million people is on the verge of civil war. There&amp;#039;s a distinct economic edge to the conflict now, however. Ivory Coast, as it happens, is the world&amp;#039;s largest producer of cocoa, the primary ingredient in the globe&amp;#039;s sweet obsession, chocolate.  In a nutshell, Ivorian voters went to the polls last November and by 54.1-percent voted their long-standing president, Laurent Gbagbo, out of office and chose, instead, Alassane Ouattara, to lead the nation. The problem is that Gbagbo refuses to leave office. He&amp;#039;s postponed numerous elections over the past decade all ready.  Where does cocoa come into play? The cocoa bean is Ivory Coast&amp;#039;s largest export, producing nearly 40-percent of the world&amp;#039;s supply. Gbagbo has been using revenues from those exports to maintain his hold on power, using the money to pay the military and the civil service, without whom it&amp;#039;s unlikely he could continue his hold on power, according to Reuters. President-elect Ouattara has called on the the world&amp;#039;s governments and the various corporations that buy cocoa from Ivory Coast to honor a month-long freeze on imports of the nation&amp;#039;s cocoa to cut off the funds Gbagbo needs to keep himself in power, reported The Guardian. As an interesting aside, Ivory Coast is also the world&amp;#039;s primary supplier of so-called &amp;quot;blood diamonds.&amp;quot;  The United States, on Tuesday, said it would honor Ouattara&amp;#039;s request. Like most of the world, the U.S. regards Ouattara as the legitimate president of Ivory Coast, and most of the companies which purchase Ivorian cocoa \u2013 amounting to some 80 percent of the country&amp;#039;s cocoa exports \u2013 have committed to doing so, as well. Minnesota-based Cargill, one of the world&amp;#039;s largest food companies, buys up to 15-percent of Ivory Coast&amp;#039;s cocoa and has said it, too, would honor the request.  Still, there&amp;#039;s a lot of confusion about the import ban. The ban doesn&amp;#039;t apply to cocoa purchased from small farmers but as the cocoa beans make their way to the country&amp;#039;s ports, they are for the most part piling up in warehouses as there are few ships coming in to haul them away.  Needless to say, but we&amp;#039;ll say it anyway, the insecurity has nudged the price of cocoa to its highest prices in a year. That rich, sweet little 2.5 ounce indulgence is getting mighty expensive on quite a few levels. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/food/news/a38377/united-states-agrees-to-ban-on-cocoa-from-ivory-coast/>