Jean-Bédel Bokassa

Jean-Bédel Bokassa was a Central African military leader and politician who seized power in a coup d'état on January 1, 1966, and served as the second president of the Central African Republic. On December 4, 1976, he declared himself Emperor of Central Africa, renamed the country the Central African Empire, and adopted an extravagant imperial style modeled on Napoleon; his 1977 coronation cost roughly a third of the country's annual budget. His roughly thirteen year rule was marked by widespread repression, torture, and human rights abuses. He was overthrown in September 1979 when French military forces carried out Operations Caban and Barracuda. After years in exile he returned to the Central African Republic in 1986 and was tried on multiple charges, including murder and cannibalism; he was convicted of murder but released in 1993, and he died in Bangui in 1996. In 2010 a later Central African president posthumously rehabilitated his legacy, praising him as a great builder. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/