Central African Empire
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Central African Empire (official French-language name Empire centrafricain ) was a monarchy existing from December 4, 1976 to September 20, 1979 on the territory of the previous and later Central African Republic . The revolutionary empire was proclaimed by the military dictator Jean-Bédel Bokassa , who had ruled since 1966 and who crowned himself Emperor Bokassa I in 1977 . During this time the country was de jure a constitutional monarchy , but was in fact governed autocratically by the monarch with the unity party Mouvement pour l'évolution sociale de l'Afrique noire (MESAN) .
In the era of the empire, Bokassa I consolidated his dictatorship with the support of France and tried to secure the power of his family through a hereditary monarchy . In the context of political “purges” he had tens of thousands of alleged and actual opponents arbitrarily arrested, sentenced to forced labor or executed without trial, and deported to prisons and penal camps. Many prisoners died there from torture or were killed in the inhumane conditions. Promised economic improvements did not materialize in spite of initial successes and the internationally isolated regime lost its last sympathy among the people.
The era of the empire ended in 1979 after mass protests with a coup d'état by Bokassa's cousin David Dacko , who on September 21 declared the emperor deposed and proclaimed the republic again.
development
prehistory
The roots of the empire were already in the independence of the Central African Republic on August 13, 1960. France released the country from colonial rule under the rule of President David Dacko .
Dacko was the country's first president and at the same time, as defense minister, built his presidency on the support of the military ( Forces Armées Centrafricaines ). To ensure the loyalty of the army, he appointed his cousin Colonel General Jean-Bédel Bokassa as chief of staff and military adviser to the president in 1964 . With his support, Dacko began to consolidate his power and turned his regime into a one-party state with a strong presidency for a term of seven years. On January 5, 1964, Dacko was re-elected in an election where he ran as the only candidate. During his brief second term as president, Dacko increased diamond production in the country. Due to mismanagement , by 1966 at least half of all diamonds mined up to then had been illegally smuggled out of the country. Dacko lost the support of most Central Africans due to growing corruption , increasing inefficiency of the government and increasing costly bureaucratization. There were also tensions with France because Dacko turned increasingly to the People's Republic of China in terms of foreign policy .
In the night from December 31, 1965 to January 1, 1966, Jean-Bédel Bokassa carried out a bloodless coup against Dacko and prevented the head of the Central African gendarmerie Jean Izamo, a rival of Bokassa, from taking power . Bokassa was named second President of the Central African Republic on January 1, 1966.
In the first months of his rule, the popular dictator secured his power. He formed a new government, repealed the 1959 Constitution and dissolved the National Assembly of the Republic. He tried to stabilize the economy, promised an active fight against corruption and tried to modernize his country with hesitant industrialization . In order to achieve equal rights for women , he banned polygamy , dowry and the traditional circumcision of women and tried to make education and transport accessible to a large part of the population. At the same time, however, he made major cuts in public life.
Despite the reforms, which were largely received positively, Bokassa struggled to legitimize his regime internationally . He tried to portray himself as an anti-communist in the West and broke off relations with China on January 6, 1966, and expelled all Chinese military advisers and people from the country's economic life.
Bokassa's regime was the first to be recognized diplomatically by neighboring Chad . Most of the other African countries soon followed suit. France first refused to cooperate with the regime, changing its attitude after the visit of French President Charles de Gaulle to Bokassa on July 7, 1966. At his pressure, the Central African Republic participated on April 2, 1968 in the founding of the Union of Central African States (UEAC) with the DR Congo and Chad. On August 30, 1970, Bokassa announced land reform and politically advocated the value of labor . From then on, his regime was strengthened by France, which considered it favorable to defend its interests in the region, for example for the extraction of uranium in Bakouma . France was also interested in the country's strategic geographic location in the middle of Africa.
Bokassa strengthened his power dictatorially, had torture and executions practiced and on March 2, 1972 declared himself president for life. On May 19, 1974, he was promoted to Marshal . He had relatives fill important positions in the country. On January 2, 1975, he formed a new government under his distant relative Elisabeth Domitien , who became Africa's first female head of government and made his disempowered cousin Dacko his adviser.
Proclamation of the Empire
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On September 3, 1976, Bokassa dismissed the government of Elisabeth Domitien, which opposed the transformation of the republic into a monarchy , and replaced it with the "Central African Revolutionary Council" (French Conseil de la Révolution Centrafricaine ). On December 4, 1976, at the MESAN party convention, it was decided to convert the republic into an empire . The Congress adopted a new imperial constitution, according to which the emperor was the head of the executive and the crown of the empire was inherited by the male successor. In the same month, Catholicism and Protestantism were declared state religions and parliament was abolished as a representative body.
Bokassa tried to justify his actions by claiming that a monarchy would make the country more prominent on the African continent and in the world. Due to the monarch's egoistic extravagance, the image of a ruler infested with " Caesarial madness " prevailed and solidified the image of a megalomaniac and corrupt military regime .
Bokassa was finally crowned "Emperor of Central Africa" on December 4, 1977, two days after the 173rd anniversary of the coronation of his role model Napoleon in 1804 in the Sports Palace of Bangui . The coronation took place in the presence of 5000 guests, including the French Cooperation Minister Robert Galley . No foreign head of state or government took part, except for the Prime Minister of Mauritius Seewoosagur Ramgoolam . During the coronation, Bokassa wore a velvet robe with a 10-meter-long replica of the train that Napoleon also wore at his coronation. Bokassa had persuaded the company "Guiselin", which had already designed Napoleon's clothes, to do so.
The ceremony was very luxurious: 10,000 pieces of jewelry , 200 military and police uniforms, 600 tuxedos and around 60,000 bottles of champagne and Burgundy , 100 tons of fireworks , 1.5 tons of medals, 5,100 gala uniforms , 20 Citroën diesels and 60 ( Mercedes ) limousines were made consumed or flown in for the ceremony. Many French craftsmen and designers helped and organized the coronation. The throne came from the sculptor Olivier Brice. The fashion designer Pierre Cardin was responsible for the imperial wardrobe. The pure gold imperial crown was designed by the jeweler Claude Arthus-Bertrand with allegedly 7,000 60-carat diamonds worth five million US dollars . The scepter and the imperial orb cost about another five million.
In total, the imperial coronation cost the country between 20 and 50 million US dollars, a third of the state budget at the time. It was largely funded by Libya and France.
The new emperor initially quartered himself in a villa in Kologo, a suburb of Bangui, but still owned a palace as an official residence in his home village of Bobangi .
Bokassa I was entitled "His Imperial Majesty Bokassa the First, Emperor of Central Africa united by the will of the Central African people in the national political party, the MESAN" (French Empereur de Centrafrique par la volonté du peuple Centrafricain, uni au sein du parti politique national, le MESAN ), his wife Catherine Martine Denguiadé the title Catherine I. The flag of the previous republic was retained, but the name "Central African Empire" was used on postage stamps and coins . Bokassa then developed an unrestrained despotism in which torture and corporal punishment were the order of the day.
Development until 1979
After the proclamation, Bokassa succeeded in relatively stabilizing the new empire internally and externally. He based his regime on Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya and France under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing , who declared the dictator to be a “friend and family member” of France in 1975 and presented him with diamonds. Until 1979, France spent the majority of its development aid money for Africa and provided military support for the regime . In return, Bokassa d'Estaing invited people on hunting trips to Central Africa twice a year and set up a private hunting ground for the President in the north of the country. His regime supplied France with uranium , which was used for French nuclear power and the Force de frappe nuclear weapons program . Due to the Cold War , Bokassa tried to have his empire recognized from both sides of the Iron Curtain . During this period he succeeded in opening 28 new foreign embassies in Bangui, and he made the city the seat of two African organizations.
Collaboration with France came to a climax with the imperial coronation in 1977, when the French Defense Minister dispatched an army battalion to secure the ceremony and donated 17 aircraft to the government for the new Imperial Air Force.
Inside the empire, Bokassa tried to enforce his “imperial regime” through rampant despotism , in which torture and corporal punishment were the order of the day. Bokassa had tens of thousands of people locked up and is said to have thrown crocodiles and lions to eat. The emperor also had the families of his wives, some personal acquaintances and his own bodyguards executed . Beggars or invalids in the larger cities are said to have been captured by henchmen of the regime and thrown from flying planes. Thieves' ears were usually cut off and beaten to death. Most of the crimes were committed in Ngaragba Central Prison in Bangui. Whether the regime and Bokassa practiced cannibalism is controversial. Bokassa belonged to the G'bakka people , who were subject to cannibalism. The only witnesses to alleged cannibalism by Bokassa were its former French chef Philipp Linguissa and David Dacko.
Bokassa and his family made considerable fortunes during the empire through increasing corruption and favoritism. Until 1979, the dictator is said to have smuggled 17 million francs (38,000 German marks at the time ) into his private fortune from the state treasury. He used the money mainly to buy some castles, villas and hotels across Europe . In France alone he owned three castles , a hotel , an estate and a villa near Nice .
On July 14, 1977, the regime came to the fore after the arrest and torture of the white journalist Michael Goldsmith, an Associated Press correspondent for South Africa who was believed to be a spy . Criticism from the major Western powers and the United Nations increasingly isolated the country.
In January 1979 there were peaceful demonstrations in Bangui by families of officials whom Bokassa had not paid for several months. The emperor put down the revolt and about twelve people died. However, the situation did not calm down. On April 17 and April 19, large numbers of elementary school and college students rioted after they refused to pay and wear expensive government-ordered school uniforms bearing the likeness of Bokassa. When Bokassa is said to have driven through the capital on April 19 and stones were thrown at his car, the protests turned into violence. The regime ordered the arrest of 180 children, some of whom were allegedly beaten to death by Bokassa on the evening of the same day or who were suffocated. Only 28 children survived the massacre . The number of victims and survivors is controversial. According to Amnesty International, “only” 100 children died.
The massive worldwide press coverage of the schoolchildren's deaths put the protecting power of France under pressure and the republic distanced itself from the regime in May 1979.
End of the empire
Former President David Dacko took advantage of Bokassa's trip to Libya in September 1979 for a successful coup supported by France (the so-called Opération Barracuda ). The empire was abolished and on September 20, 1979 the republic was restored. When the ex-emperor Bokassa returned from exile to the Central African Republic on October 23, 1986, he was arrested and sentenced to death . The sentence was commuted to forced labor in 1988. Bokassa died on November 3, 1996 in the capital, Bangui .
See also
Web links
- Image of a postage stamp of the Central African Empire ( Memento from June 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- Illustration of a banknote of the Central African Empire
literature
- Reinhart Bindseil: In the heart of Africa. An ambassador experiences Bokassa I and his empire. epubli, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86931-855-4 . (Look into the book)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pierre Lunel: Sex, Lies and Politics . Glénan Islands 2012, p. 280.
- ^ Brian Titley (1997): Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa I. McGill-Queen's University Press , Montreal 1997, ISBN 0-7735-1602-6 , p. 29.
- ↑ Violaine Challeat-Fonck and Pierre Péan: Bokassa . La Marche de l'Histoire , November 18, 2010.
- ↑ Deadline: December 4th, 2007 - 30 years ago: Bokassa is crowned Emperor of Central Africa on WDR1