Postcards from Hell: 4/60

This series is a look at Foreign Policy Magazine's "Postcards From Hell, 2012: What does living in a failed state look like? A tour through the world’s 60 most fragile countries." You can read the full photo essay here. DPoH commentary on photos provided by Jacqueline, unless otherwise noted. 

Today's postcard is from a country which, if the universe were just, would be filled with dudebros and cheap booze: Chad.

These boots are made for walkin'...

Chad is a victim of what is commonly referred to as the 'resource curse'. Money plus unstable government equals guns. Many, many guns. But not only guns--Chad's president, Idriss Deby, was using the ludicrous amounts of new oil money to pay off debts to the World Bank and the Bush administration, all while pinching resources out of nation-building programs and refusing to invest any in his own government.

Chad's corporate partners aren't helping either. From the 'resource curse' article:

Companies like ExxonMobil recognize that expectations for how corporations handle their wealth and power in such impoverished countries are changing in the Internet Age, but they understandably resist any suggestion that they become nation-builders. “We’re not the Red Cross,” an ExxonMobil executive once said about the Chad experiment.

So while millions of dollars in oil revenue flow into Chad each year, food and water emergencies regularly force people to subsist on the same food and drink their animals do. Applause for you, President Deby. Your lack of responsibility is truly an inspiration to us all.