Real Dictators - Jean-Bédel Bokassa Part 2: The Power Grab, the Châteaux and the Missing Daughter

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

A new year brings new beginnings in the Central African Republic. President Bokassa attempts to modernise. But at the same time, the mass incarcerations and torture ramp up and corruption takes hold. And then things get really strange… An imposter infiltrates Bokassa’s homelife. A bizarre public competition is launched to marry off the president’s daughters. And the leader takes a significant trip to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Louisa Lombard, Richard Moncrieff, Gino Vlavonou. This is Part 2 of 3. Written by John Bartlett | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Fact check by Heléna Lewis | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by Jacob Booth | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. You can listen to the final episode of the Bokassa story straight away, without waiting and without ads, by joining Noiser+. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My place in tech changes every day, but I don't fear the future, because I'm with the leader, Pluralsight. Their online learning platform has the hands-on expert-led courses I need to master new tech skills and create bigger impact. So I can learn quickly and stay ahead. With Pluralsight, I don't fear what's next. I embrace it. Tap in at Pluralsight.com and see for yourself. It's July 1972. From the backseat of a sleek Mercedes car, Jean-Belle-Bocasa, president of the Central African

Republic, looks out at the country he's ruled for the past six years. This is a nation without much experience of independent life. Since liberating itself from the French Empire in 1960, Bacasa is only only the C.A.R.'s second president after his cousin, David Daco, who Boccasa removed by force in a military coup. Things are progressing nicely for the self-appointed savior of the fledgling nation. He is growing concerned, however, about the moral compass of his subjects and feels it might be time to teach them a lesson they won't forget. Not long ago, a group of men were caught stealing tires in the car park of the presidential palace.

He ordered his guards to cut off their ears using scissors. Pleased with his spontaneous act of justice, Boccasa has since ordered that this be the standard punishment for theft nationwide. A thief will lose one ear for the first offense, the other for a second offense, and their right hand for a third. Surgeons must carry out the operations within 24 hours of sentence. distancing. Boccasa steps out of his Mercedes before the gates of Ungaragba prison,

a.k.a. the devil's hole. A small door is open for him to enter, unannounced. The president stoops through the door before straightening up and taking in the central courtyard and the dilapidated cell blocks which surround it. The prison guards clock the arrival of their leader and recoil nervously. Nothing must go wrong while their vengeful commander is touring the facility. A rat shoots out

from beneath a stack of chairs in one corner of the yard and a guard boots it back under the pile with a muffled squeak. He quickly glances over to where Boccasa is standing, but the president, thankfully, is looking the other way.

The guard exhales, relieved. Bacasa whispers quietly to an aide, who informs him that there are 46 thieves already missing ears held at the prison. I would like to speak to them, says Boccasa. Heads bowed. The man are arranged in two lines before him in the yard, their feet shuffling in the scrubbed dirt.

As long as there are thieves, the army will administer beatings to the guilty, he barks. All thieves must die. There will be no more theft in the Central African Republic. Turning to the nearest officer, he instructs the prison guards to beat the thieves to death with their sticks. It's a sickening sight. One of Bacassas' ministers cannot stand the violence

and rushes away to throw up. Pocasa himself barely flinches. After five minutes, he orders the guards to stop. stop. Three of the prisoners are already dead. The next morning the survivors are displayed, haggard and limp, on a platform at the Place of the Republic, the main square in the capital city, Bangi. In Bocasa's mind, such incidents are necessary, all part of being the nation's strong man. He knows no other way. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is part two of the Boccasa story, and this is real dictators.

Let's scroll back. We last saw Boccasa on New Year's Eve, 1965, staging an audacious coup against the president of the Central African Republic, his cousin, David Daco. Several hours later, it's a brand new year of 1966, and the nation has awoken under fresh administration. While most central Africans nurse hangovers or sleep in, Colonel Jean-Bedel-Bocasa is at the Camp de Rue military barracks, posing for photographs. The former French army officer performs for the cameras, gesturing dramatically in his battle fatigues.

He's wasting none time in setting out his store as a great man not to be messed with. Overnight the military have rounded up Darko's service. supporters and friends. Ungaragpa prison, freshly empty just a few hours earlier by Bacca's spontaneous act of clemency, soon begins to fill again. Among the new inmates are 64 presidential security guards. Most will never get out alive. Even for the lucky few who don't die here, it will be years before they're released.

Within a month, Jean Isamel, the police chief who refused to do. Chorn Boccasa's coup is tortured to death at Ungaragba. Other prominent members of the old regime flee. When they're eventually caught, they too will rise under the agonies of physical punishment as Bucasa watches on. Dr. Louisa Lombard from Yale University. I think in addition to how the coup d'etat was executed, what was kind of interesting was that the initial response was

surprise yes but more or less okay then we're doing this now and moving on i think there was a hope that having a military person come in would be able to bring in some of that structure and discipline from the military to introduce a bit more seriousness into the central african government and a kind of get things done mentality he was also very close with france and french functionaries were still staffing all of these Central African government offices, and so they saw him as also someone who they could work with. He spoke their language in both a literal sense and also in more metaphorical senses.

There is one life Colonel Bacassar reluctantly spares, his cousins. Perthurbed by the prospect of the summary execution of a former head of state, France threatens to cut off aid to the CIA if Darko is killed. So, rather than meeting his end at Angaragba, Darko is kept in a small room at the Camp Kasai Army facility. He remains in solitary confinement and is placed on a highly restrictive diet, losing weight alarmingly. Dr. Gino Vlaveno has studied the deposed president's personal accounts. It turns out that Darko has a different, rather more outlandish theory as to why Picasso spares his life. Daco goes into a story in his biography

as to why Bokasa didn't kill him maybe because of some pretty strong women who have supernatural powers that Bokasa feared and says Bufcasa and Daco were from the same region Bucasa didn't want to upset these women at least that's what Daco recounts in his diography.

The new president is quick to spell out the justifications for his coup. Boccassar's main argument is that Isamo and pro-Chinese accomplices have been concocting an elaborate plot to seize power and install communism in the CIA. The ground had been laid because Darko had coased it up to the People's Republic of China in exchange for a sizable loan. Less than a week after the coup, Bacassar breaks off diplomatic relations with Beijing. This certainly plays well with his French backers. Concern at the potential for radical leftism to spread throughout Africa is rife among the former colonial powers.

Richard Moncrief, analyst and expert on Central Africa. In Central African Republic and in much of the rest of Francophone Africa, The specific ideological debates around socialism and capitalism did not have much depth and were not, in a way, or not of great interest to people. But the geopolitics was, and some leaders took the calculation, really, that siding with Western power, and of course in this case with France was a useful strategy, and declarations of anti-communism was part of that strategy. I think that the anti-communism, which Picasso expressed, was not so much an ideological choice as a geopolitical choice informed by a kind of historic respect for French power, I'd say. Not so much the French nation, but this sense of power emanating from France. But Picasso's focus is not just on foreign powers.

It's on what can be done at home. The new president dissolves the CAR's National Assembly, berating it as a lifeless organ no longer representing the people. In its place he installs a new government, which he labels the Revolutionary Council. He also abolishes the Constitution, saying that a new one will be put to the people to decide upon. Elections will follow, he promises,

and after that a new assembly. Because Picasso stresses that he wants nothing other than to see the will of the people enacted. He pledges that once the communist threat is eliminated, the economy stabilized, and corruption rooted out, he will willingly give up power. In a show of apparent humility, he passes up the chance to live in the plush surroundings of the presidential palace. Instead he moves into the camp to Roo Barracks, though he will later build himself at least one opulent palace.

Boccasa confidently evokes the legacy of Bartolome Bouganda, the deceased father of the nation and symbol of Central African independence. Boccasa says that his coup was a miracle achieved in the great man's name. At least at the beginning, he insisted, right, that he was someone who could bring the whole Central African country together, a man of unity, and also a strong and determined leader. That is the kind of discourse with which he began leading the country. But the structural situation in which he found himself, which was not a lot of educated, people, really minimal infrastructure at the time of independence.

So the objective became, how do I develop the country? Picasso devotes himself to bringing the Central African Republic in line with his ambitious vision of a modern nation. Bangi is one of the only African capitals without a public transport system, and the president spots an easy win to get his new subjects on side. He inaugurates bus lines which crisscross the capital. and the fleet of buses duly arrives from France. A ferry service begins, carrying passengers up and down the Ubangi River.

Bacasa even subsidizes the establishment of two national orchestras, with instruments brought in from Paris. Bocasa had big plans, and he immediately started working on the projects that he had for the country, building a better airport, eventually building a university, building a lot of new government buildings. His imprint architecturally is still very important in the city of Bangi, the capital. It took him some years to really be able to achieve what he had started out hoping to do. But one of the things that was distinctive about this time was that he had lots and lots of ideas and programs

and he was starting things. And at least in those early years, it felt like an exciting time to a lot of Central Africans that it was a time when things were being created. when there were opportunities, and these included things like a youth corps that was going to go around and do different kinds of public projects all over the country. And for young people, this was exciting. This was a chance to earn some money, which was still a relatively rare thing for most Central Africans at that time, but certainly something everybody wanted, and to participate in the building of a nation.

on the Noiser Podcast Network, it's a busy month with the launch of a brand new show. Join Sir David Soucher for Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories, a selection of Dickens' most spine-tingling tales. In Jane Austen stories, Pride and Prejudice concludes, When all said and done, will Pride get in the way of true love? Short history of Texas onto the historic canals of Venice and beyond the courtrooms of the Nuremberg trials. On real survival stories, we'll follow an emergency chopper

as it goes down in the Labrador Sea and traverse the mountain bike trails of Patterbury. In Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes unpicks a mysterious string of sculpture-related crimes in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. And Real Dictators returns with the extraordinary story of Jean Bedell-Bocasa. Get all of these shows and more, early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. And if you're still on the hunt for Christmas presents, then why not grab a copy of A Short History of Ancient Rome, available in all good bookshops? This burst of projects is accompanied by a flurry of decrees, which seek to impose a new moral code.

The Revolutionary Council orders that men and women between the ages of 18 and 55 must provide proof of employment to avoid fines or imprisonment. Begging is outlawed. Tom-toms, the drums which throb away in Bangy suburbs, can only be played at night or over the weekend. Polygamy and dowries are abolished, as is female circumcision. Parents found to have harmed the educational opportunities of their daughters will be punished. Finally, Boccasa forms a morality brigade, to keep a watchful eye on Bangy's bars and dancehalls. In this moral crusade, he targets those he calls the thieves and swindlers of the darker regime. Most of the bureaucrats he inherits are dismissed, and Bacasa rounds on the civil service,

accusing officials of using their offices for rendezvous with their mistresses. Ministers and civil servants are henceforth banned from nightclubs and other such places of public pleasure. To make it known that he's serious, Boccasa even banishes the mayor of Bange to the countryside when he fails to meet the new president's moral expectations. Boccasa's plans to reshape the nation in his image are in full swing. There were still French advisors around working in a lot of the government agencies, but the idea was that everything should be taken over by Central Africans. So there was a push to try to hire more Central Africans in all different kinds of government agencies

and even just established those government agencies. Remember, Bocasa was the one who was key to establishing the Central African military just about 10 years before. All of these institutions were brand new. So as you create new institutions, you get to hire people and hiring people, giving them a salary, giving them the status of being a public sector employee. This is a very popular thing for a president to do, something everybody wants to get that kind of a post. And he was able to do this on a scale that was probably greater than his immediate predecessor, David Daco, that led to the feeling that this was a country that was on the up and up.

But it isn't long before the CAR's new leader is giving with one hand and taking with the other. As the months progress, Boccassas' early promises of free elections seem to be fading into the background. He increasingly goes off the whole idea. The people need strength, clarity, a figure to rally behind, not the mess of elections. In October 1966, Boccasa makes a memorable, striking public announcement. He, and he alone, is the nation's guide, he proclaims.

I am everywhere and nowhere. I see nothing, yet I see all. I listen to nothing and hear everything. Such is the role of a head of state. There is no mistaking who is in charge. In time, Bocasa. will ban elections and even forbid the mere mention of democracy. Boccasa's change of stance and Central African's willingness to accept it

likely has at least something to do with the apparent need to create order in a country still wrestling with its autonomy. Bokasa being something of a war hero and coming out of the military, he had some credibility in terms of saying that he was going to shape, things up in the Central African Republic. Common to most military governments, the rationale of the leaders is that the military is an established institution that knows how to get things done and that is going to be able to get things done in a way that civilians never managed to get themselves disciplined enough to do. Now, Central African Republic, its legislature was a bit of a laughing

stock. It was known for having long debates about the price of alcohol at the market or, you know, things that directly affected the ministers, but ignoring this much bigger problem and project of building a nation, building institutions, all of that kind of stuff. So I think people felt like here's somebody coming in with big ideas. Let's see what he can do. And he also had a very strong sense of himself as a visionary, as someone who was specially endowed to be able to do this kind of work. But beyond the capital, Bangi, few people know much of Colonel Picasso, who has spent the majority of his life abroad fighting foreign wars on behalf of the colonial power. The CAR's ebullient new president must rectify this. He engages in an energetic

self-promotion campaign, showing his countrymen his French army medals, and talking up his own strength, fearlessness, and masculinity in a series of public appearances. To retain the support of the influential Catholic missions in the country, he makes frequent appearances at church, praying ostentatiously. During an official visit to Bangy Hospital, he announces that he's donating his first month's salary to its operations. Styling himself as the new father of the nation, Picasso encourages his ministers to address him as Papa. He tours the country with a slight limp due to occasional flare-ups of gout,

and is propped up by an ebony walking stick, topped with an ivory knob. The cane is known as his candor-justice, with which he will administer beatings to anyone who gets on his nerves and strays within range. Around the CIA, he gives vigorous speeches in Sango, the national language, and Central Africans flock to hear him. Women regularly come forth to mop his brow with their dresses. Before long, his proclamation that he is everywhere seems to come true.

Billboards, clothing, street signs, and school exercise books all bear his name or his image. He was central in creating the Central African Television Station. One of the first in this whole region. So he brought from his travels a sense that there was a lot going on in the world, that there was a lot of technological progress that Central African Republic needed to catch up on, and that this was a potentially wealthy country that should stand on two proud feet, despite the fact that it was so obviously very poor

and lacking in resources and education. He and other leaders were trying to build state institutions out of pretty much nothing. Bacasa, like other post-colonial African leaders, have often been described as rather weird or mad or irrational. but I think they're trying to pull off an almost impossible trick of pretending that they are the leaders of a modern country that has a seat at the UN in the same way that France does

and that buys into the myth of equality of nations because indeed that myth is important to their power. It's important to the domestic level because they draw from the myth of sovereignty and the belief or the belief that they're trying to create that they are the leader of a modern state, they draw on that in an attempt to impose internal legitimacy in a very fragile, and in the case of Central Africa and public,

a deeply fragile context. By Boccassar side is Alexandra Banzer, the chief co-conspirator in the coup that brought the colonel to power and now the Minister of Finance. But Banzar is growing increasingly vexed by his capricious leader, whose fantastical decrees and expensive tastes are disrupting efforts to steady the country's finances. Relations between the two deteriorate, with the national budget the major source of contention. Bacassar is not a man to brook descent.

In April 1968, he announces one of his frequent cabinet reshuffles. Banzar is demoted to minister for health. No surprise is there. But soon after, Banzer takes the bold step of publicly criticizing both Boccasa and his erratic management of the economy. The president pounces on this insubordination by demoting his former ally further still. Refusing to buckle, Banzer hatches a plot to claim his revenge. It's the afternoon of April 10th, 1969.

Alexandra Banzer flashes his security clearance to the guard at the gate of Camp Casay. It's hardly necessary. He is the second most recognizable man in the country these days. His mouth is dry, but he smiles warmly and is waved through. In his pocket, a handwritten plans for overthrowing President Volkasa. Naturally, he's kept the plot as quiet as possible, confiding only in those he feels he can trust. The playbook is almost identical to the one that he and Bacasa used to oust darker.

Banzer and his accomplices will take over the usual strategic points in the capital, the airport, the radio station, and the palace. As he enters the facility, he's approached by Lieutenant Jean-Clau, Mandaa, the camp's commanding officer. Mandaba is aware of what's afoot. He is one of the few people Banzer has told about the coup. Although that, as Banzer is about to discover, was not a good idea. Assisted by two soldiers, Mandaba grabs hold of Banzer,

who struggles fiercely, barely having time to realize that he's been betrayed. A sudden sharp blow to his forearm snaps the bone clean in two. Overpowered, Banzar is bound by the ankles and wrists and bundled into the boot of a Mercedes. With a thud, everything goes dark. Banzar is driven out to Beringo, 80 kilometers southwest of Bange, where Bacassar is ready to greet him. At the vast palace he's built for himself, Bacassar interrogates his former Minutes. minister and thrashes him with his candest justice. Only Mandaba's hasty suggestion that a public trial should be held spares Banza's life.

On April 12, 1969, Banzer is placed before a military tribunal at the Camp De Rue. Broken, beaten and exhausted, he tries to argue that while he'd sought to topple Boccasse, he'd not intended to kill the president. Plans found in his pocket confirm this. But it doesn't really matter. The trial is predetermined. The inevitable death sentence is handed down. That night, Panzer is led to a field behind Camp Kassai, where a firing squad awaits.

He's buried where he falls in an unmarked grave. Bocasa could also be uncompromising and brutal, certainly. But I think that Central Africans were both critical of that, but also used to it, unfortunately, by this point. Their experience with government was that it was most of the time completely neglectful of them, and then every now and then extremely brutal towards them. And of course, they didn't want it to be that way, but that was kind of the experience during the colonial period. So now in this independent era, with somebody coming in, promising to be very tough and hard on bad guys, while also building institutions, you know, it didn't sound to a lot of people like a terrible turn of events. Taking on the bad guys is very much part of Picasso's M.O. Many of those deemed a threat to his regime end up in Ungaragba prison, where lack of sanitation and poor diets are just as likely.

to cause death as the merciless torture. In the prison's tomb-like concrete cells, beatings are common for inmates, especially for those convicted of crimes against women. To mark Mother's Day one year, Boccasa suddenly orders the execution of all those guilty of raping or killing women. All female prisoners are released.

Bokasa frames himself as the moral conscience of the nation. He has informers every woman. there, and being close to him is no guarantee of lighter punishment for perceived transgressions. His valets are frequently flogged, while his cabinet is kept on its toes by impromptu promotions and demotions. Some are banished to far-flung corners of the country. Whether Picasso is issuing amnesties or death sentences, it's always done in the name of a greater project, that of building a Central African Republic to be proud of. Yet, this self-styled embodiment of the nation will forever have a piece of his heart

thousands of miles from home, in France, the CIA's old colonial oppressor. And there is one Frenchman above all whom Boccasa idolizes, Chaudegal, the legendary leader of the free French forces against Nazi Germany and president of his country. between 1959 and 69. This titan of international relations is described by Boccasa as a father figure to him and the only hope after God for the people of the CIR. So when, in November 1970,

Bacasa receives the news that the former president has died, he's distraught. Seemingly in genuine shock, Bacasa heads for Paris and is the first world leader to arrest. arrive for a commemorative mass at Notre Dame Cathedral. At a reception in the Elisei Palace, Bacasa irks his hosts by turning up in a French parachutist's uniform. Then, during a visit to the village where de Gaulle is buried,

Boccassa weeps openly, exclaiming that he has lost his papa. Madame de Gaulle is unimpressed. Such extraordinary displays reveal something deeply complex. about this often brutal dictator. The knotty ties of history and the pragmatic needs of geopolitics mean that France plays an outsized role in the daily affairs of the CIA. But for Bocasa, his connection to the French Republic seem almost spiritual. Bocasa was a fascinating person for so many reasons,

including that he was an incredibly proud patriot of the new nation, of the new nation, Central African Republic, and at the same time, he wanted to be more French than the French. And you can see this in all sorts of different ways. For instance, one of the things that the French colonials did in the Central African Republic was big game hunting. And he participated in that with great eagerness and invited French dignitaries, French heads of state to come and hunt with him. So, yeah, the sense of self as a French person as well as a Central African, but I think these identities were equally important to him.

De Gaulle's successor as president is Georges Pompidou, more of a stiff technocrat than the strides and swash-buckling de Gaulle had been. Bacassar is underwhelmed. With Pompeu in charge, France remains the major player in its former colony's economy and provides considerable subsidies, technical assistance, and budget supplements. Yet, things aren't quite the same as they had been that Boccasa could warm himself in the rays of Degov's charisma. And it's now that Bacassas' attentions wander, casting around for alternative sources of aid and patronage, and for fresh ideas that might allow the CAR to flourish in its own right. In the 70s, Pocasa decided to what we call Central African eyes.

So in French, Central Africanization, he wanted to remove all the French people who were still in various ministries, either in advisory roles or still managing different departments. So he took a specific decree in August 6th, where he wanted to central-Africanize all the managing positions within the public service, but without really taking into account that he wouldn't find the required skills among the available Central Africans. In addition to Africanizing the civil service, Bacasa nationalizes numerous French commercial concerns that remain in the country. He also announces a grand new plan, one that promises to transform the CAR. It's known as Operation Bocasa, a sweeping reform of the national economy.

At the heart of the project is a radical program of collectivized agriculture, farming run by and for the state, a remarkably left-wing scheme for a man who once pledged to rid the nation of the cancer of communism. Modern machines will be used to revolutionize the CAR's economic fortunes, producing vast quantities of coffee, cotton, and other products to be sold on the world market. Inundated with crops and export profits, the CAR will become self-sufficient. Never again will it need to rely on the largesse of the French or any other foreign power. At least, that's the idea. In reality, the whole thing is a disaster.

Inefficiency and lack of expertise ensure the plan is dead on arrival. But Operation Boccasse does deliver on at least one of its objectives. It allows its eponymous mastermind to line his own pockets. The best agricultural equipment finds its way onto farms and plantations run by Bocaso and his cronies. He conspires to take gargantuan shares of the diamond and ivory industries as well. As we saw in the opening scene of this story, it's through big game hunting that Bacasa makes friends with Valéry Gisgastin, the lusch French politician who visits the CAR to indulge his penchant for killing elephants.

The safari hunting industry was probably at its apex during Bocassas. rule. Starting around the 1970s, the prices for ivory started to skyrocket. Bocasa's family took advantage of this, getting in on illegal ivory smuggling. But they certainly were not the only ones. And so during that period, you had a lot more hunters coming into the Central African Republic for things like ivory on a much bigger scale, killing more animals. The elephant population of the Central African Republic was completely decimated. Once again, the lands of the CIA are being ruthlessly exploited to the benefit of those in power. And it's President Boccasa, who is taking the biggest slice of the pie.

He owns apartment buildings, factories and shops. On his vast estate at Beringo, there are coffee and cocoa processing plants, an abattoirtoire, a sawmill, a garment factory, a restaurant, and the headquarters of his two airlines. He pays low wages to his workers and knows that markets for his products are virtually guaranteed. If all else fails, he can sell them to the government at fixed prices. The President never submits accounts for any of his activities, nor does he pay any taxes. Many of the profits likely end up in his Swiss bank account. Boccasse's various revenue streams buy him the bounty he feels he deserves.

A series of chateau dotted throughout France, which show the French that he belongs among them, he thinks. He buys Chateau-San-Louis Chavanon, modelled on Louis Xirteenth's palace. A 400-hector hunting lodge called La Coutaincierge is surrounded by private woodland and meadows, and close to Paris, he owns the imposing Chateau. of Dowdrecourt. As the decade progresses, Bacassar indulges more and more in his French luxuries. Yet the CAR's relationship with France itself becomes ever more rocky.

In April 1974, a young French woman, believed to be one of Bacassas' lovers, is found dead in her bed. The French media point the finger at the central African president. A furious Picasso bans French papers and expropriates the offices of a news agency. But his torrid private life is a continued source of gossip and speculation, and on occasion a matter of genuine national importance. For instance, it turns out Picasso's ban on polygamy doesn't seem to apply to himself. He marries a series of women who become known by their nationality or ethnicity. the Lebanese, the Romanian, the Cameroonian, the Chinese, the German, the Swede, the Vietnamese, and the Zaire Wars. His favorite wife is said to be Catherine, known to Central

Africans as Mamong Kathy, whom he had stalked and then married while she was a teenage schoolgirl. Catherine has a talent for spending money. She becomes an avid collector of dolls and stuffed animals. Bacasa has dozens of children, though only about 30 are officially recognized. Papa Bok, as he's often called, is a proud father who teaches his children Sango and the folklore of his embaka people. Marie-France Bocasa, one of the many children he recognized, later wrote a memoir entitled The Oger's Castle. She paints an interesting portrait of her father. as someone who was a strict disciplinarian, had very high standards for his children, and could be quite dictatorial also in his home life, but also someone who was very, very important

to her as she was growing up. Now, one of the things that Marie-France-Bocasse writes about in her memoir is that one of the challenges that those kids faced was that their father had multiple wives and that the relationships among the children and some of these wives were not always easy, and that some of those stepmothers could be, in some cases, much more brutal than the father. And a lot of the siblings ended up caring for each other, particularly older siblings, older female siblings caring for younger siblings from a very young age, you know, from babies, depending on the status of the mother and whether she was still around in the picture or not. So it was quite a complicated childhood in some respects, but also a rich one in certain ways with this

density of sibling ties. But one unknown has preoccupied the president since his days in Indochina. While on duty with the French army in the 1950s, because of father-da-daughter, Martine, who was born to a young Vietnamese girl. He becomes determined to track this daughter down. He begins to make inquiries via the French concentration. General in South Vietnam. Sure enough, in 1970, a dark-skinned girl called Martin Nguyen Tibai is found. She claims to be his daughter. Papa Bock is elated. Martin has grown

up in a Saigon slum, in a shack made of flattened beer cans, and now makes a handful of coins each day selling cigarettes on the streets to American servicemen. The girl is sent to plane ticket to Bangi, stopping off in Paris to collect a two and a half thousand franc stipend from the French government. She goes straight out and buys a Cartier watch, like father, like daughter. Martine arrives in Bangi in the early morning, where the president is standing on the tarmac with a welcome party. A fairy tale ending for Bacasa and this poor young woman from Saigon? The happiest of father-daughter reunions? Not quite.

Only a month later, a Vietnamese newspaper reveals that the girl is an imposter. So the search starts over, and this time there's no shortage of applicants. It turns out that back in 1953, the French actress Martine Carroll had been all the rage. Saigon is teeming with 17-year-old half Vietnamese martines. This time a birth certificate is produced for a new martin. who is working in a cement factory, as well as photographs of her mother with a young Bocasa. Case closed. Both mother and daughter arrive in Bangey to be reunited with Bucasa.

Surprisingly, he adopts the false, Martine too. And then things get really weird. A bizarre competition is launched, in which central African men must vie to marry Bucas's half-Vietnamese daughters. A doctor at Bangi General Hospital wins the heart of the real Martine. Captain Fidel O'Brew, commander of the cadet school at Camp Casai, marries the fake Martine. But soon trouble is brewing among the winners of Bacassas' reality show-style marriage stunt. Papa Boc suspects that Captain O'Brew has married into his family to get closer to the

heart of power. This time, Bacassas' paranoia is justified. O'Brew detests his father-in-law, Anne soon has found enough like-minded military men willing to take power into their own hands. It won't be long until an opportunity comes their way. It's February 3, 1976, a pleasant, dry morning, a blessed relief from the oppressively sticky summer month. Bacasa is due to fly north to a national park to go hunting. He arrives at Umpocco Airport, relaxed and cheerful at 9.30, and strolls towards the VIP lounge. He's blithely

unaware of what's around the corner. Scattered throughout the terminal are Captain O'Brew and several accomplices, intent on attacking the president before he can board his plane. It's not the most subtle of plants. One of them will lob a grenade at Boccasa's feet. Three others outside the entrance will open fire after the explosion. A brew holds his breath. As the president enters the terminal, a bru's man takes aim and hurls his grenade, only to see it fly past Boccasa, skid along the floor and nestle among some plants. There is pandemonium. People spring. print away from the explosive. And then, nothing. No explosion. The grenade is a dud. Bacasa is left without a scratch. In the ensuing chaos, Abreu attempts to flee, ultimately

unsuccessfully. In the end, he's brought to the palace, where Bacasa, Catherine, and several ministers await him. Obroubrew insists that he had no deadly intent. The grenade was only meant to stun Bocasa. Fat chance that excuse is going to wash. On the 12th of February, the accused had taken to the Omnisport Stadium. Half-dressed and handcuffed, the men faced a public trial, followed closely by Central Africans on the radio. But, as with Alexandra Banzer, the trial is a charade. By 7 p.m., a verdict is reached.

A brew and several others are condemned to death. Lit up in the night by the headlights of a truck, they're executed. While physically unharmed, Bacasa is badly shaken by the assassination attempt. He isolates himself in his presidential palace, surrounded by personal guards, and begins to make some erratic decisions that are hard to comprehend. People must no longer call him Papa, he declares. Then, shocking everyone, Boccasa announces that David Darko, the man he had overthrown and then banished to internal exile, is to join his cabinet as a personal counsellor. A case of keeping your enemies close? Who knows?

Second-guessing the president is increasingly futile. The assassination attempt coincides with continuing economic strain, exacerbated by a recent drought. Bacassar appeals to the French for help. But when they take a look at the books, they're horrified by what they see. No proper records of outgoings, nor any discernible budget. Rebuffed by his old friends, the president must look elsewhere. On September 1, 1976, Boccaster touches down in Libya to mark the seventh anniversary of the coup that brought Colonel Mualma Gaddafi to power.

The extravagant Libyan strongman has long been promoting his unique version of Islamic revolution abroad, and Bacasa knows what he needs to do to turn on the money tap. When he arrives back in Bangi, he transforms his cabinet into a council of the revolution, modeled on that oblivion. Then he announces proudly to a bewildered nation that he is converting to Islam. Among the CIR's population of two million, about half a Christian and half adhered to traditional beliefs, there is a tiny minority of about 20,000 Muslims. Now, apparently, their supreme leader is one of them.

On October the 17th, Gaddafi arrives in Bangi, beaming. Kneeling on a white goat skin brought over from Libya, Bacasa is officially initiated into Islam at a city mosque. He will henceforth be known as Sala adin Ahmed Bukhasa. The national flag will carry a crescent next to its star. to Islam is an initial statement that you make, but then after that it's really about what you do and whether you live as a good Muslim, and that takes a lot of time and a lot of things that you have to do in your daily life. So he may well have made the statement. I don't think he ever

went all that much farther than that. Members of the Council of the Revolution are incentivized to follow suit, with gifts of up to 20 million CFA francs apiece should they too convert. Many refuse, but some do accept the money. Saladin Ahmed Bakasa gifts himself a sizable cash reward, too. Before he leaves the CIA, Gaddafi addresses a curious crowd at the Omnisports Stadium in Bangi, and is the guest of honor at a banquet given at the presidential palace. He sits beside Bokasa, who wears traditional North African dress. The anticipated money soon arrives from Libya.

and Bacasa is able to stave off the debtors a while longer. It's an important moment in the story of the CIA, the forging of a significant diplomatic relationship outside the orbit of French control. That's an interesting constant in Central African Republic Affairs, is that it's a poor country with a very weak state, and the presidents constantly look for external support. And of course, in the first years, this was from France, but over time it evolved. I've worked on Central African Republic for about 25 years.

I first went there in 2002, and at the corner of every important street in Bangi, there were jeep and soldiers from the Libyan army. So that relationship with Libya was certainly my first strong impression of being there. What Bacassar establishes between the C.A.R. and Libya will continue in different guises with different presidents long after his time in charge. Though, perhaps predictably, his own personal turn to Islam isn't permanent. It's not long before the president is looking to shake up his image again. The failed assassination attempt is a crunch point, and he's now searching for ways to step back from the front line of politics, while still retaining his exorbitant

privileges. He looks towards two other leaders for inspiration. First, the late emperor Haile Selassi in Ethiopia, and second, one of his personal heroes from France, Napoleon Bonaparte. It's a light-bald moment for Boccassar. He believes that a new form of statehood might give him the lofty distance he craves. Right on cue, the C.A.R.'s sole political party, Mesaun, invites Bacasa to assume a new title, that of emperor. Naturally, he accepts. On December 4, 1976, an imperial decree introduces a new constitution, and overnight, the republic becomes an empire.

Bangi shall remain the capital, but Bacasa will oversee proceedings from his imperial court at Borengo. His Muslim name is discarded as quickly as it had been adopted. He is now Boccasa I. Affirmative responses to his command should take the form of, yes, imperial majesty. Negative responses, if absolutely necessary, must always be more respectful than a blunt no. this is the emperor you're addressing after all and people crossing his path must salute from six paces by slightly inclining their heads

Picasso likes the look of this imperial life there is only one thing the emperor now needs to make it official a coronation but it will take a form that nobody could quite predict In the next episode, Boccasa I first is introduced to the world in a totally surreal manner, with white horses from Belgium, finery from France,

and songs from a Broadway musical. The costs are eye-watering, and the C.A.R.'s finances continue to tumble. Unrest and instability start to take hold. A controversial policy about school uniforms leads to one of the grimmest and most tragic episodes in the country's history. And as the emperor loses control, old friends become foes. Old foes return from the dead, and Bacassas' day of judgment is at hand. That's next time. In the final part of the Boccasa story. You can listen to the conclusion of the Bucasa story right now, without waiting, and without adverts, by joining Noyser Plus. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to Noyser.com forward slash subscriptions to get started.