Word: bedel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...last two issues, Le Canard charged that Giscard, both when he was Finance Minister and after he became President in 1974, had graciously accepted 50 carats in diamonds-the first 30 alone valued at $240,000-from Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the sadistic former "Emperor" of the Central African Republic...
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast--The Ivory Coast government yesterday granted asylum to Jean Bedel Bokassa, deposed ruler of the Central African Republic. Bokassa, ousted last Thursday in a bloodless coup, flew to the Ivory Coast after France denied him refuge from the new Central African Republican government...
PARIS--Forces of "democratic liberty" took over the Central African Empire yesterday after 14 years of rule by Jean-Bedel Bokassa. French troops flew in to help the new regime...
...climactic moment, Bokassa, 56, crowned himself and placed a smaller coronet on the head of the youngest of his three wives, 28-year-old Empress Catherine. (Rumor has it that the Emperor also keeps a blonde Rumanian mistress on the side.) Two-year-old Crown Prince Jean-Bedel Bokassa, dressed in a white naval uniform, yawned occasionally during the ceremony and next day fell fast asleep at a postcoronation parade...
...Jean-Bedel Bokassa was educated at mission schools, joined the army at the start of World War II and by 1950 had risen to the rank of company sergeant. He survived the debacle at Dien Bien Phu and later retired as a captain. When the Central African Republic became independent in 1960, the country's first President (and Bokassa's cousin), David Dacko, named him commander of the army. As the fledgling state suffered through the inevitable independence pangs, the frustrated President at one point shouted to a group of bureaucrats: "What this country needs is a good...