A Brief History
On December 4, 1977, Jean-Bedel Bokassa crowned himself Emperor of the Central African Empire. Previously the President of the Central African Republic, Bokassa apparently thought many little Bokassas would follow, as he named himself Bokassa I.
Digging Deeper
Bokassa was a military officer in the armed forces of the Central African Republic when he seized power in a military coup in 1966, naming himself President. Even that was not good enough, for 7 years later he named himself President for Life, probably to make it clear he did not plan on retiring.
In 1976, this egoist declared himself Emperor Bokassa I, with the coronation taking place among much fanfare on December 4, 1977. Not surprisingly, his reign as Emperor was not recognized as such outside of his own country, and with the aid of France, his predecessor as President, David Dacko, was reinserted in his old job.
French Equatorial Africa was a colony of France until given its independence in 1960 as the Central African Republic, a dirt poor country landlocked in the middle of Africa. Dacko made the blunder of naming his cousin, Bokassa, head of the armed forces (boasting an army of only 500 soldiers) giving Bokassa a springboard to seize power.
Bokassa used and abused his position to enrich himself, dictating a law that all schoolchildren must wear uniforms purchased from a factory owned by Bokassa. When all the kids could not afford the uniforms, Bokassa had hundreds arrested and at least 100 executed!
Bokassa planned to make his coronation as Emperor a spectacle the world would admire, and spent $5 million on his crown alone, with a total of over $20 million spent on the gala event, virtually bankrupting his poverty stricken country. That money represented a full third of the country’s entire budget that year!
Interestingly, Bokassa was actually a decent soldier, serving during World War II with the Free French and in Indochina where he earned the Croix de Guerre. France even supported the Bokassa regime during the 1970’s, as did another African dictator, Moammar Qadaffi (which you can spell however you like). France became uneasy with Bokassa when persistent reports of brutality, corruption, and even cannibalism surrounded his reign. Bokassa was said to personally partake in executions and other acts of depravity.
Upon being ousted, Bokassa ended up in exile in France, and upon his return to Africa was convicted of murder and corruption, but exonerated of cannibalism. (Take that, Idi Amin!) He was sentenced to death, and that sentence was commuted to life in prison, and then he was freed after only 6 years in jail. He lived out the rest of his life quietly in his former Empire, dying of natural causes in 1996, but not before he declared himself the 13th Apostle of Jesus!
Despite an international reputation as an ultra-corrupt megalomaniac and somewhat of a mentally ill person, in 2010 the President of the Central African Republic declared Bokassa “a son of the nation recognized by all as a great builder” in an effort to rehabilitate Bokassa’s reputation.
Even today, the Central African Republic remains the 185 poorest country in the world out of 187 rated nations (2013, by “human development“). The nominal GDP of the CAR is a paltry $378 per capita (#181 out of 183 nations), compared to over $50,000 per capita in the United States. Not surprising when they choose to honor a “leader” like Bokassa! Despite its poverty, the nation of about 4.7 million people does have decent natural resources available, such as uranium, gold, oil, lumber and freshwater. It also has an abundance of arable land, but apparently a lack of judgment in choosing leaders. Come to think of it, most other countries have that same problem!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Serial Killers : Jean-Bédel Bokassa – The Cannibal Emperor. QUIK eBooks, 2011.
Titley, Brian. Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by N/N of the Imperial couple at the banquet, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
You can also watch a video version of this article on YouTube.
