Tempting chaos

摘要

For a vision of the country's future-should the current chaos in Cote d'lvoire continue, as it well may-look west. In neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, recently-ended wars have cost around half a million lives in 15 years and left millions beggared and bereaved. Only when the plunder ran low did the flames subside, making way for UN peacekeeping missions costing hundreds of millions of dollars; reconstruction will cost billions more. Having much further to fall, Cote d'lvoire, west Africa's second-biggest economy, could burn for decades. That is a prospect worth avoiding (see page 67).