Cocoa spices up Abidjan prison life

ABIDJAN, July 22, 2008 (AFP) - In the last month life inside the sinister main prison in Ivory Coast, the maison d'arret et de correction d'Abidjan (Maca), has taken on a chocolate flavour as it filled up with top cocoa officials arrested in a large scale corruption probe.

On visiting days the car park fills op with gleaming luxury vehicles as nearly all the bosses of the country's influential cocoa regulatory bodies are being held there.

Ivory Coast is the world's biggest producer of cocoa nibs -- nuggets of roasted cocoa beans that provide the basic ingredient of all chocolate. The West African country produces some 40 percent of the world market in cocoa and over six million people are employed in the cocoa industry.

The massive corruption probe, ordered by President Laurent Gbagbo, has claimed the scalps of 17 top cocoa officials, many of whom are former allies of the president and members of his party.

The new prisoners in Maca attract a new kind of visitor: political big wigs. The change in clientele delights the youngsters who offer to guard cars at the entrance.

"Business is good," says 16-year-old Jean.

Inside, the so-called cocoa prisoners make a change from regular inmates.

Ordered to be held in provisional detention while the probe into the cocoa industry is ongoing, the nearly 20 officials are housed in a special wing reserved for white collar criminals.

Some have been allowed to redecorate their cells and install air-conditioning. They also have a special space where their lawyers, family and friends can visit.

On the day AFP went to the prison many of the cocoa prisoners were sitting on benches quietly talking with their visitors in the suffocating heat while a fan hummed overhead. Another preferred receiving visitors in his cell, guarded by another prisoner.

"Our detention is politically motivated, how else can it be that after being accused of fraud the authorities cannot give an amount," the suspect, who did not want to be named, said.

Gbagbo ordered the probe into corruption at the cocoa institutions in October 2007 after allegations surfaced that the one regulatory organisation had embezzled more than 100 billion CFA francs (152 million euros, 235 million dollars) earmarked for the purchase of a chocolate factory in the United States.

In June this year Ivory Coast prosecutors unveiled a list of 23 people charged with "financial fraud and embezzlement". The authorities have never given an official figure for the amount allegedly embezzled.

Spirits are high among the cocoa prisoners in Maca even if the officials, long considered untouchable in Abidjan, don't like being locked up.

"I planned my escape but it failed due to the high oil prices: my helicopter could not take off as kerosene prices have doubled," one of them joked to AFP.

Last week Abidjan was crippled by a transport strike over the high fuel prices until the government caved in and slashed petrol prices.

"They are disillusioned but are keeping their dignity," a prison guard explains, adding that many of the cocoa prisoners "feel abandoned by the president".

While they might be psychologically suffering the cocoa officials do get luxuries ordinary detainees have to go without like provisions, reading material and medications.

During a visit of members of parliament to the prison some days earlier one MP described the jail as being in "a disastrous state". Built in 1980 for housing 1,500 prisoners the structure now holds over 4,800 detainees.

The deputy added that ordinary prisoners suffer from "chronic malnutrition" and suffer from diseases "of a bygone era", saying that since the start of 2008 43 inmates had died in the jail.