Jean-Bédel Bokassa

Bokassa I
Emperor of Central Africa
Reign	December 4, 1976 - September 20, 1979
Coronation	December 4, 1977
Predecessor	New Empire
Successor	Empire abolished
Issue	Crown Prince Jean-Bédel
House	Bokassa
Religion	Catholicism, Islam

Bokassa I of Central Africa (22 February 1921 – 3 November 1996), also known as Jean-Bédel Bokassa (IPA: [ʒɑ̃ bedɛl bɔkasa]) and Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa, was the military ruler of the Central African Republic from 1 January 1966 and the Emperor of the Central African Empire from 4 December 1976, until his overthrow on 20 September 1979.

Early life

Bokassa was born as one of 12 children to Mindogon Mgboundoulou, a village chief, and his wife Marie Yokowo in Bobangui, a large M'Baka village in the Lobaye basin located at the edge of the equatorial forest, some 80 kilometres (50 mi) southwest of Bangui. Mgboundoulou was forced to organise the rosters of his village people to work for the French Forestière company. After hearing about the efforts of a prophet named Karnu to resist French rule and force labour, Mgboundoulou decided that he would no longer follow French orders. He released some of his fellow villagers who were being being held hostage by the Forestière. The company considered this to be a rebellious act, and they detained Mgboundoulou and took him away bounded by chains to Mbaïki. On 13 November 1927, he was beaten to death in the town square just outside the prefecture office. A week later, Bokassa's mother, Marie Yokowo, unable to bear the grief of losing her husband, committed suicide.

Bokassa's extended family decided that it would be best if he received a French education at the Ecole Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc, a Christian mission school in Mbaïki. As a child, he was frequently taunted by his classmates about his orphanhood. He was short in stature, but made up for this by being physically strong. In his studies, he became especially fond of a grammar book written by a French man named Bedel. His teachers noticed his attachment, and started calling him "Jean-Bedel". During his teenage years, Bokassa studied at Ecole Saint-Louis in Bangui, under Father Grüner. Grüner educated Bokassa with the intention of making him a priest, but realized that his student did not have the aptitude for study or the piety required for this occupation. He then studied at Father Compte's school in Brazzaville, where he developed his abilities as a cook. After graduating in 1939, Bokassa took the advice offered to him by his grandfather, M'Balanga, and Father Grüner, by joining the Free French Forces as a private on 19 May.

Army

After the occupation of France by Nazi Germany, he served in the Forces' African unit and took part in the capture of the Vichy government's capital at Brazzaville, and ended World War II as a sergeant major. He remained in the Army after the war and served in Indochina and took part in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, getting promoted to second lieutenant in 1956. For his exploits in battle, he was honored with a membership in the Legion d'Honneur, and was decorated with Croix de Guerre. By 1961, he had risen to the rank of captain. He left the French army in 1964 to join the army of the Central African Republic. As a cousin of the President David Dacko and nephew of Dacko's predecessor Barthélémy Boganda, Bokassa was given the task of creating the new country's military. He rose to the rank of colonel and chief of staff of the armed forces, becoming commander in chief of the army in 1963.

Coup d'état

On 31 December 1965, Bokassa led a coup to overthrow Dacko, who was planning to cut the military budget because of the country's economic difficulties. The next day, 1 January 1966, Bokassa proclaimed himself president, prime minister, and head of the country's sole political party, the Mouvement pour l'Evolution Sociale de l'Afrique Noire or MESAN, which translates as the "Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa". Three days later, he abolished the existing constitution and began to rule by decree. He instituted a plan to improve and modernize agriculture in the country, but became increasingly despotic in his attempts to retain power.

He worked to create a cult of personality for himself, and had his portraits prominently displayed throughout the country. At the same time, he purged and imprisoned his political opponents, outlawed strikes, and imposed strict government censorship rules.

In April 1969, he executed his closest aide and his paratroop commander, Lt. Col. Alexandre Banda, on suspicion of his involvement in a coup attempt. Bokassa used this as the impetus for consolidating his power even further. In 1971, he promoted himself to full general, and in March 1972 declared himself president for life. He survived another coup attempt in December 1974. The following month, on 2 January, he relinqueshed the position of prime minister to Elizabeth Domitien. His domestic and foreign policies became increasingly unpredictable, leading to another assassination attempt at Bangui M'Poko International Airport in February 1976.

Foreign support

Because of the Central African soil's mineral resources (including uranium and diamonds), some countries like France, Switzerland and the United States supported Bokassa and dealt with him. In 1975, the French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing declared himself a "friend and family member" of Bokassa. By that time France supplied its former colony's regime with financial and military backing. In exchange, Bokassa frequently took d'Estaing on hunting trips in Africa and supplied France with uranium, a mineral which was vital for France's nuclear energy and weapons program in the Cold War era.

The "friendly and fraternal" cooperation with France — according to Bokassa's own terms — reached its peak with the imperial coronation ceremony of Bokassa I on 4 December 1977. The French Defense Minister sent a battalion to secure the ceremony; he also lent 17 aircraft to the Central African Empire's government, and even assigned French Navy personnel to support the orchestra.

On 10 October 1979, the Canard Enchaîné satiric newspaper reported - in what soon became a major political scandal known as the diamonds affair - that President Bokassa had offered the then Minister of Finance Valéry Giscard d'Estaing two diamonds in 1973. The Franco-Central African relationship drastically changed when France's Renseignements Généraux intelligence service learned of Bokassa's willingness to become a partner of Qadhafi of Libya. In early December 1979, the French council officially stopped all support to Bokassa.

After a meeting with Qadhafi, Bokassa converted to Islam and changed his name to Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa. It is presumed that this was a ploy calculated to ensure ongoing Libyan financial aid. When no funds promised by Qadhafi were forthcoming, Bokassa abandoned his new faith. It also was incompatible with his plans to be crowned emperor in the Catholic cathedral in Bangui.

Proclamation of the Empire

Styles of Bokassa I of Central Africa
Reference style	His Imperial Majesty
Spoken style	Your Imperial Majesty
Alternative style	Sir

In September 1976, Bokassa dissolved the government and replaced it with the Conseil de la Révolution Centrafricaine 'Central African Revolutionary Council'. On 4 December 1976, at the MESAN congress, Bokassa instituted a new constitution and declared the republic a monarchy, the Central African Empire. He issued an imperial constitution, announced his conversion back to Catholicism and had himself crowned "S.M.I. Bokassa Ier", with S.M.I. standing for Sa Majesté Impériale: "His Imperial Majesty", on 4 December 1977. Bokassa's full title was Empereur de Centrafrique par la volonté du peuple Centrafricain, uni au sein du parti politique national, le MESAN ("Emperor of Central Africa by the will of the Centrafrican people, united within the national political party, the MESAN"). Both his lavish coronation ceremony and his regime were largely inspired by Napoleon I, who had converted the French Revolutionary Republic of which he was First Consul into the First French Empire. The coronation ceremony was estimated to cost his country roughly 20 million US dollars.

Bokassa attempted to justify his actions by claiming that creating a monarchy would help Central Africa "stand out" from the rest of the continent, and earn the world's respect. Over $20 million was spent on the coronation (consuming one third of the C.A.R.'s annual budget and all of France's aid that year), but despite generous invitations, no foreign leaders attended the event. Many thought Bokassa was insane, and compared his egotistical extravagance with that of Africa's other well-known eccentric dictator, Idi Amin. Tenacious rumors that he occasionally consumed human flesh were found unproven during his trial.

Though it was claimed that the new Empire would be a constitutional monarchy, no significant democratic reforms were made, and suppression of dissenters remained widespread. Torture was said to be especially rampant, with allegations that even Bokassa himself occasionally participated in beatings.

Overthrow

Repression

By January 1979, French support for Bokassa had all but eroded after riots in Bangui led to a massacre of civilians. Between 17 April and 19 April a number of schoolchildren were arrested after they had protested against wearing the expensive, government-required school uniforms. Around 100 were killed.

The severe international criticism which followed upon the massacre of the students enabled former President Dacko to gain French support and led a successful coup using French troops while Bokassa was absent in Libya on 20 September 1979.

Operation Barracuda

Transport aircraft Transall.

Bokassa's overthrow by the French government was called "France's last colonial expedition" ("la dernière expédition coloniale française") by veteran French diplomat Jacques Foccart. Operation Barracuda began the night of 20 September and ended early the next morning. An undercover commando squad from the French intelligence agency SDECE (now DGSE), joined by Special Forces' 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, or 1er RPIMa, led by Colonel Brancion-Rouge, landed by Transall and managed to secure the Bangui Mpoko airport. Upon arrival of two more transport aircraft, a message was sent to Colonel Degenne to come in with his Barracudas (codename for eight Puma helicopters and Transall aircraft), which took off from N'Djamena military airport in neighbouring Chad.

Fall of the empire

By 12:30 PM on 21 September, the pro-French Dacko proclaimed the fall of the Centrafrican Empire. David Dacko remained president until he was overthrown on 20 September 1981 by André Kolingba.

Bokassa fled to Ivory Coast where he spent four years living in Abidjan. He then moved to France where he was allowed to settle in his house at Haudricourt, west of Paris. France gave him political asylum because of the French Foreign Legion obligations.

Trial

Bokassa had been sentenced to death in absentia in December 1980 but he returned from exile in France on 24 October 1986. He was arrested and tried for treason, murder, cannibalism and embezzlement. Following an emotional trial over some months he was cleared of the cannibalism charges but was convicted of the remaining charges and sentenced to death on 12 June 1987. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in February 1988 by then-President Andre Kolingba and then reduced further to twenty years. With the return of democracy in 1993, Kolingba declared a general amnesty for all prisoners as one of his final acts as president, and Bokassa was released on 1 August. He had 17 wives and a reported 50 children.

At the end of his life he proclaimed himself the 13th Apostle and claimed to have secret meetings with the Pope. He died of a heart attack on 3 November 1996 in Bangui, at the age of 75.

References

• Appiah, K. Anthony (1999). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-00071-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Kalck, Pierre (1997). Central African Republic: A Failure in De-Colonisation. London: Pall Mall Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kalck, Pierre (2005). Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic. translated by Xavier-Samuel Kalck (3rd edition ed.). Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4913-5. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Titley, Brian (1997). Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-1602-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Imperial stamp example
• Imperial currency example
• Imperial flag
• WorldStatesme- CAR
• The Big Man (Info on Bokassa and other African Rulers)
• Werner Herzog's documentary film on Bokassa
• Amusing story about Emperor Bokassa's "crown jewel"
• Jean-Barthelemy Bokassa's blog (about his first book "Diamonds of treason" dealing with Jean-Bedel and Martine bokassa
• Jean-Bedel Bokassa video interview while exiled at Abidjan in 1983 (French)
• Various documentaries about Bokassa (French)