Word: bokassa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
Former President David Dacko staged a bloodless coup and unseated Bokassa late Thursday night while Bokassa reportedly was in Libya...
...special uniforms bearing his own imperial likeness. The uniforms cost an extortionate $165 each and were sold exclusively by a factory owned by one of the Emperor's wives. Weeks of strikes and rioting followed the decree. On the night of April 18, according to the Amnesty report, Bokassa's soldiers rounded up a large number of children and youths in districts where protests had occurred and took them to Ngaragba prison. About 100 were killed that night. Some were shot, some clubbed, others bayoneted; about 20 who were huddled in a small cell died of asphyxiation...
...Bokassa denied Amnesty's charges of murder, claiming that the victims were "grownup" students in revolt against his regime. "In my country," he declared, "everybody calls me Papa." Unfortunately for Papa, his Ambassador to Paris, General Sylvestre Bangui, resigned and sought asylum in France after confirming that the massacre had indeed taken place. His mission now, said Bangui, would be to lead a "liberation front" against Bokassa...
...French government is especially embarrassed by reports of the killings: aid from Paris, offered in return for military facilities and access to uranium deposits, keeps Bokassa in power. Moreover, Giscard sometimes goes on hunting trips to the Empire, where his family owns a hotel and a hunting lodge. Nonetheless, Paris announced that it was suspending military assistance to the Empire pending a complete investigation by five African states of the massacre charges...