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Central African Republic forgives Jean Bedél Bokassa, the self-crowned emperor accused of cannibalism and tyranny.
One of Africa's most brutal dictators, accused of cannibalism and feeding his opponents to animals, has received a posthumous pardon from the country he looted and terrorised.
Jean-Bedél Bokassa was the self-crowned emperor of the Central African Republic (CAR) until his ousting in 1979. He fathered 62 children and threw himself a coronation, based on that of Napoleon, that cost the equivalent of his country's entire GDP.
But Bokassa, who died in 1996, was formally rehabilitated this week by the CAR's current ruler, president François Bozizé.
"This rehabilitation of rights erases penal condemnations, particularly fines and legal costs, and stops any future incapacities that result from them," said a presidential decree issued to mark the CAR's 50th anniversary of independence from France.
Bozizé said the man who proclaimed himself Emperor Bokassa I had "given a great deal for humanity" and would have "all his rights" returned, the BBC reported.
Bokassa was "a son of the nation recognised by all as a great builder", the president added. "He built the country but we have destroyed what he built."
Bozizé, who seized power in a coup in 2003, awarded Bokassa's widow, Catherine, a state medal of honour. Bokassa's children said they would set up a fund to compensate victims of his tyranny.
The CAR's decision took African experts by surprise. Richard Dowden, the director of the Royal African Society, said: "To celebrate someone who came to power in a coup and ruled so brutally is not what you expect in a democracy."
He added: "Elections in the CAR have been postponed and postponed. Presumably François Bozizé is trying to shore up support and maybe he needs to get the family on board. But that's just speculation."
Dowden recalled seeing Bokassa in person on a visit to Uganda. "He had come to meet Idi Amin. He was a fanatical collector of medals, but so was Amin, and Amin had the bigger chest so he could wear more medals."
Backed by France, Bokassa came to power in a coup in 1965 and ruled with an iron fist, torturing and killing political rivals and cutting off the ears of thieves.
Accusations of cannibalism were widespread but unproven. They were triggered by photographs in Paris-Match magazine that apparently showed a fridge containing the bodies of schoolchildren. It was also claimed that Bokassa's political rivals were cooked and served to visiting foreign dignitaries or fed to lions and crocodiles in his personal zoo.
Bokassa named himself emperor in 1976 and organised a lavish coronation, costing tens of millions of dollars, in which he wore costumes styled on Napoleon's and rode in a carriage flanked by soldiers dressed as 19th-century French cavalrymen.
He was overthrown three years later after his guards killed scores of schoolchildren demonstrating in the capital, Bangui.
Relatives of the children this week condemned the formal rehabilitation.
Bokassa was sentenced to death for assassinations, concealing corpses and embezzlement, later commuted to a prison sentence. He was released in 1993 by then president, Andre Kolingba.
He ended his days as a recluse in his villa in Bangui and died of a heart attack in 1996, aged 75. His once opulent palace – in which he was said to have slept surrounded by gold and diamonds – fell into ruin, his dozens of children living there in rags.
Despite Bokassa's egregious crimes, the CAR has witnessed a movement to rehabilitate him, a trend compared with some Russians' nostalgia for the days of Stalin.
GUARDIAN
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