Papa in the Dock

Unrest, protest, massacre

The Butcher of Bangui," as the African newspaper has dubbed His Imperial Majesty Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire, is a ruler whose future may be on the block. Last week the U.S. suddenly recalled Ambassador Goodwin Cooke, following reports by Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, that in April about 100 schoolchildren had been murdered by Bokassa's imperial guard in the capital of Bangui. A week earlier, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing pointedly avoided shaking hands with the Emperor at a Franco-African conference in Rwanda.

The April killings climaxed a year of unrest and protest over the big-spending ways of the self-crowned Emperor, a for mer French army sergeant who seized power in a 1965 coup. Although his landlocked, Texas-size country is one of the world's poorest, Bokassa reportedly has been dipping heavily into the public treasury to pay for his six homes in France (including a chateau in the Loire Valley), his three wives, his royal court, and tuition for many of his 35 children at Swiss boarding schools.

Last January the Emperor ordered all primary and secondary students to wear 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.

The 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.

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