Word: bokassa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...artist Jeff Koons is - much less why he's sharing a tribute with Helen Keller, Hans Blix and Jacques Cousteau. And you don't have to be a rabid (Groucho) Marxist to turn down membership in a club that includes murderous Central African Republic "Emperor" Jean-Bédel Bokassa...
...course, no one could have predicted that Bokassa would end up a cannibalistic dictator when he was nominated to the Legion at the end of World War II. But French traditionalists do warn that unless the Legion returns to honoring people for their sacrifices, it will eventually be viewed by history as one that celebrated the rich and famous for just being the rich and famous. "Today, there are more CEOs and fewer civil servants, more sports stars and more show-business personalities [nominated for the Legion]," lamented an editorial in the conservative daily Le Figaro. "This intrusion of glitter...
...Cheap Chinese consumer goods have also stretched African shoppers' small budgets. Meanwhile, for a nation like France to complain about China's human-rights record on Africa seems beyond a pot-kettle comparison - France has long sponsored African "democrats" like former Central African Republic leader Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who was ultimately convicted of at least 20 murders. Likewise, the U.S. has close ties to Ethiopia's abusive regime, and to oil-rich kleptocracy Equatorial Guinea, whose dictator was welcomed to Washington in 2006 as "a good friend" by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice...