Jean-Bédel Bokassa

Okay.

He said Bokasa the first.

She's Bokasa the first too now.

Catherine Bokasa.

She's not the first.

She might be

silly oh my god so much silliness

going on at the highest level by the way like the lives of at least 5 million people at the time 2.5 million people in your hands and you're acting like this is it what's the fate of Mokasa now where is he now

So Ngoyma hid his atrocities by trying to plunge his country into a dark age, erasing the very reality of what was happening.

But then you have a figure like Jean-Bédel Bokassa in the Central African Republic, who took power in 1966.

He did the exact opposite.

He didn't hide in the dark.

Oh,

okay.

Bokassa understood that if he provided the resources the West desperately needed, he could purchase a diplomatic immunity.

The spectacle of the coronation was essentially a laundering mechanism for his power.

He created a new constitution and changed the Central African Republic to the Central African Empire.

Jean-Bedel Bokassa was now His Imperial Majesty Bokassa I. Bokassa said becoming an empire would make- The country stand out and it would help it earn more respect internationally.

But if he was going to become an emperor, Bokassa wanted a full ceremony.

Yes, now he needed a coronation, and he knew the kind of coronation that he wanted.

The Emperor of Central Africa had been removed from power while he was out of the country.

And just like that, the Central African Empire became the Central African Republic again.

Bokassa immediately tried to go to France first.

Remember, he had spent more than, what, twenty years serving in the French military.