Jean-Bédel Bokassa
We now come to the granddaddy of them all. If one was to research the most dysfunctional nations in Africa, the Central African Republic would be somewhere near the top of the list. Part of the old French Federation of Equatorial Africa, it was a backwater then, and it is a backwater today.
CAR was granted independence from France in August 1960, and for the first six years, it was stable. It would never be rich, but seemed at least it would peaceful. Then, with depressing predictability, a military coup was mounted in January 1966, led by the commander of the army, forty-five-year-old Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa.
Bokassa was another classic example of a junior-ranked soldier fast-tracked to a senior command level in the interest of indigenizing the local armed forces. Lacking any real education, Bokassa was nonetheless shrewd and cunning, and utilizing the usual methods of patronage and violence, he quickly established himself in power.
His weakness, however, was a grandiose delusion. Yes, he killed enormous numbers of people, looted his treasury to buy villas in France, inveigled foreign aid and ran his nation’s economy into the ground. He did all of that, but as he did so, he dreamed also of emulating his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte. He modeled himself on Bonaparte, dressed like Bonaparte and imagined himself a great, tactical military leader. He insinuated himself into the French political elite, and although he was an embarrassment, he was nonetheless tolerated.
Then, one day, in just the same way as Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, Bokassa felt the time had come to do the same. In 1979, he altered the constitution, changing CAR from a republic to an empire, after which he declared himself emperor. In an astonishingly lavish coronation, complete with a golden throne, golden carriage, crown jewel and ermines, he had himself coronated Emperor of the Central African Empire.
A surprising number of international dignitaries attended the ceremony in downtown Bangui, although most governments sent non-ministerial representatives. Bokassa hoped that the Pope would come, but a high-ranking cardinal was sent instead.
In his post-imperial phase, Jean-Bédel Bokassa began steadily losing his grip. The end came during student riots in the capital when he personally entered a prison in Bangui and took an hour or two of sport, beating students to death with a weighted stick. It was all in a day’s entertainment for him, but it finally tipped the balance, and the French stepped in to depose him.
Nonetheless, he was granted exile in France, and allowed to live out his remaining years in his multi-roomed villa on the outskirts of Paris. He died in November 1996.