International rights watchdog UNISLOB have uncovered evidence that commercial initiatives designed to make trade fairer for the developing world are inadvertently funding volatile military regimes.

Efforts to address the economic inequality between the west and the third world have become increasingly popular with consumers, seeming to improve material conditions for impoverised peoples the world over and, crucially, providing neurotic westerners access to a whole new market of ego-servicing products.

However, farmers in the South American Republic of Mierda Grande have, instead of using their newly-found wealth to improve their own lots, banded together and used it to propel a totalitarian government into power. The group Imperium Mierda swept to power last month amidst a storm of international controversy.

The country's new leader, Chiefo Generalismo Massimo, was himself originally a farmer benefiting from a Fair Trade programme backed by UNISLOB. After making his fortune selling ethically branded Coffee to a popular global coffee-shop chain, The Genernalismo set about first harnessing the will and finances of his neighbouring farmers, then set about gaining support countrywide and with other industrial groups. Finally Massimo, with the support of a disaffected military, siezed power in a popular coup that has led to the eventual purge of numerous high ranking government officials.

"We're all for the freedom and rights of the farmers," an emotional UNISLOB representative told us, "but, you know, they weren't supposed to choose this!" Sobbing aloud he wailed incoherently and half to himself "All we wanted was to help these poor people! They took our love and they turned it into fascism! I feel so used!"

Our reporters snuck in to the now tightly monitored Mierda Grande and asked one farmer, Juan Diajelosphobololos: just why did he back The Generalismo's group? Juan told us: "I dont know....well, they just get things done." "All our old government did was lie to us and let in foreign corporations, who were wrecking our country and kept trying to sell us useless junk. We got tired of being treated like idiots. So we got people in who would send the parasites crawling back to their western garbage dumps." When asked whether he worried the new government would jeopardise his country's new trade relationship with the west, Juan simply shrugged and said "who cares?"

Back home, ethical consumers are now worried that the guilt they assuaged by buying fair-trade products will come back to haunt them. "It's a serious guilt dilemma!" One person told us "On the one hand I want to help the poor and enfeebled because it makes me feel good. but if my money is supporting evil, I dont feel so good any more."

The supermarket Cacomart, a leading force in the growth of the fair-trade market, are now getting nervous as their consumers start to kick back. An industry spokesman told us: "Our customers are sensitive to ethical and social issues and their purchasing decisions reflect this. We want to make that process as easy as we can for them." "Following what has happened in Mierda Grande we will be reviewing our fair-trade policy and looking to move our stake in the moralistic product market to more consumer friendly fields." Stocks of Sugar, Chocolate & Coffee farmed by wheelchair-bound, diabetic, autism sufferers are rumoured to be hitting shelves next week.