The Cannibal Emperor: Bokassa of Central Africa
His depravity was hard to believe
Jean-Bédel Bokassa must count as one of the most evil tyrants to have ruled during the late 20th century, and there were certainly quite a few to choose from.
Born in 1921 in what was then part of French Equatorial Africa, he had a military career in the service of the French colonial force and served for a time in the French Army, both during and after World War II, rising through the ranks.
On the break-up of France’s colonial empire in Africa, Bokassa became a colonel in the army of the new Central African Republic, a vast landlocked area of savanna, tropical forest and semi-desert, and one of the poorest countries in the world, with barely ten per cent of population able to read and write and more than a quarter of children dying of disease and malnutrition before they reached their first birthday.
At the very beginning of 1966 Bokassa led a military coup that overthrew the existing government and declared himself President, a position that he occupied for 11 years.
However, things took a very different turn in 1977 when Bokassa decided that being a mere President was not enough for him. His character had been molded by his long years as a soldier in the French colonial army, where all new recruits were…
