Today’s almanac, December 4
On December 4, 1977 Jean-Bédel Bokassa, also known as Bokassa I, crowned himself emperor of Central Africa in 1977. For the ceremony he emptied the state coffers for the ceremony, building a 2-ton eagle-shaped throne.
He was well-known crimes and extravagances, but also served as the president. He became the second president of the Central African Republic (CAR) after seizing power in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d’état on 1 January 1966.
An empire in the middle of Africa
Bokassa served about eleven years as president and three years as self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa, though the country was still a de facto military dictatorship.
He had seventeen wives, with over fifty children. But that’s nothing, he called the Elysée calling De Gaulle “daddy”, which greatly annoyed the French president. He was referencing the French colonial rule and his desire to take over France as payback for all the crimes they committed during the colonial rule.
But his reign didn’t last very long The self proclaimed “sovereign” was deposed less than two years later in a coup.
After the coup he fled the country, but he returned to the CAR in 1986 for a trial for charges of cannibalism and essentially war crimes, the jury found him guilty of the murder of schoolchildren and other crimes but not cannibalism.
