Côte d’Ivoire’s eighteen million stand between Ghana, Guinea and Liberia on the West Coast of Africa. They gained political independence from France in 1960, yet their fate has been tied to coffee, cocoa and banana prices. When it controlled the country, French colonizers pursued economic policies that aimed solely to generate wealth for France through these industries. Huge tracts of land became privately owned by French merchants in an oligarchic fashion. Combined with a forced-labor system that virtually enslaved indigenous populations, the colony developed only in ways that would benefit the foreigners and their bank accounts. A bureaucracy that aimed to protect industry at the expense of the locals grew, with little to no interest for the education, health or welfare of Côte d’Ivoirans. These industries still dominate the country.

Between 1980 and 2001, however, the price of coffee, in cents/kg, fell from 411.70 to 63.60, and cocoa fell from 330.50 to 111.40. Because its currency and economy was so heavily dependent on the export of these two goods, the country suffered enormously and fell into debt. In 1994, the government was forced to enact the IMF’s Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) in exchange for much-needed loans. Consequences of the ESAF included drastic reductions in education and health expenditure, a devaluation of the currency (which decreased domestic purchasing power, essentially making poor people have less money) and the abrogation of the state-run CAISTAB (Caisse de Stabilisation).

Since 1955 CAISTAB has overseen the cocoa industry, managed price controls and provided a safety net for cocoa farmers and workers. Why? Because the French had created an economy where 60 to 70 percent of all labor is based in cocoa, the welfare of millions in the country was heaviliy dependent on the price of beans. It was unthinkable to let the theoretical “market” determine something with so many consequences. In addition, the country’s managers realized that Cote d’Ivoire was the world’s leading exporter of cocoa — today, over 40 percent of the cocoa in the world comes from there. Exercising some control over the price was both sensible politcally and economially. Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country’s president from 1960 to 1993, was a fierce anti-communist, yet he maintained the CAISTAB because he saw there were alternatives to the “free market” that were not Soviet.

The IMF believed that “liberalizing” the cocoa trade was necessary for the country, and in privatizing the industry, splitting CAISTAB and selling its pieces, the people of Côte d’Ivoire lost more than stability. Concurrent drops in education spending, combined with falls in the price of cocoa, have produced a surge in child labor. Today, more than 15,000 children pick cocoa beans because they are cheaper than adult labor and there is no money send them to school.

These circumstances are more than troubling. In socio-political climates such as these, small disasters become major disasters. A community’s ability adapt to a challenge is, after all, partly a function of its material ability to provide services.

So, on August 19, when 581 metric tons of toxic waste were illegally dumped in at least eight sites around Abidjan, the country’s capital, government officials were slow to respond. The vessel Probo Koala, for reasons that are still unclear (but appear criminal), offloaded petrochemical waste containing hydrogen sulphite, mercaptans, phenols, hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons. All of these chemicals are toxic to humans and animals, and are likely entering groundwater as this column goes to print. At least six people have died, and over 30,000 have sought medical treatment for vomitting, intestinal problems, nosebleeds and combinations of internal sickness that can lead to comas and sudden death.

Did the local company hired to dispose the waste, Compagnie Tommy, just empty the waste around poor neighborhoods? Probably. At least four trucks used to transport the waste are listed as “missing” according to the U.N.’s most recent statements, perhaps in an effort to abscond with remaining evidence. Several African environmental justice NGOs charge that the waste was rejected by authorites in Amsterdam, then illegally trafficked to Abidjan, where it could be illegally dumped. Poisining Côte d’Ivoirians is cheaper than poisining Dutch, it seems. In response to the population’s outcry, Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny dismissed his government on September 6, and eight arrests have been made, including the heads of the port, customs and district of Abidjan. Groups of protesters have erected burning barricades, torched the home of the (former) ports director and charged Banny and his government with corruption. The BBC reported some signs read, “They are killing us for money,” and “They sold off our health.”

As a result of a manufactured dependence on cocoa, and the IMF’s mandated cuts in health and education spending, the government’s inability to both police the disposal of toxic waste and provide essential medical services for its people has compounded the damage to Abidjan’s people. U.N. teams found “the health facilities that were visited did not have adequate stocks of drugs nor facilities and equipment to address” the disaster. Moreover, “a lack of protective and appropriate technical equipment and expertise has hampered government efforts to carry out effective analysis of the toxic waste.” Residents complain that they cannot afford the medicines the ad hoc health clinics prescribe, and that they lack the resources to follow the government’s main treatment — move away from the toxic waste sites.

Is there a reason Côte d’Ivoire lacked sufficient medicines and health infastructure? Of course, and it has very much to do with cuts to the medical budget in recent years. Is there a reason education that would lead to expertise and techincal proficency was lacking? Certainly, and it is directly related to the country’s fate as tied to the price of cocoa, and its liberalization. It’s easy to point at Banny and call him inept, to look at social tragedies there and imagine that something is fundamentally inadequate about Africa or Africans, something “good governance” could perhaps solve. These ideas, however, miss the point completely, and indulge on racist notions of black incompetence. To understand why 30,000 people are violently ill in Côte d’Ivoire, we need to look far past the Probo Koala and the current government. The people of Côte d’Ivoire didn’t choose to mis-develop this way; the French, and now the IMF, are the ones setting policy. It’s the people of Côte d’Ivoire, however, who pay the biggest price.

Jeff Purcell is a graduate student in Africana Studies. He can be reached at jlp56@cornell.edu. Brutal Honesty appears Mondays.