Jean-Bedel Bokassa, one of Africa's most ruthless dictators who was accused of slaughtering and eating some of his critics, has died. He was 75.
Radio Notre Dame, the nation's private Roman Catholic radio station, said Bokassa died of a heart attack Sunday evening at a clinic in Bangui, the capital.The republic's national radio made no mention of the death of Bokassa, who ruled as self-proclaimed "emperor" from 1966 until 1979. But word of his death spread quickly, and by midmorning Monday several thousand mourners had gathered outside the main hospital, where Bokassa's body lay in a morgue.
Bokassa had been in poor health since collapsing in October 1995 after suffering a brain hemorrhage in Bangui.
The army lieutenant colonel's 13-year rule began when he seized power Jan. 1, 1966, six years after the country gained independence from France.
Bokassa used the country's resources - particularly diamonds - to increase his fortune while the living standard of his 3.4 million subjects stagnated.
France backed Bokassa for years, in part because of its interest in the country's uranium trade. But his human rights abuses increasingly alienated his benefactor. In 1979, 100 schoolchildren were slaughtered after complaining about their school uniforms.
Later that year, he was ousted by French troops, who reinstated the country's first president, David Dacko.
"He treated Central Africans like they were animals, like dogs," Dacko said years later in an interview.
Bokassa spent the next seven years in exile in France and Ivory Coast. When he returned to Central African Republic in 1987, he expected a warm welcome. Instead, he became the first deposed African chief of state tried for murder, torture and cannibalism.
In the three-month trial, prosecutors said Bokassa's palace was filled with evidence of atrocities, including the frozen body of a schoolteacher hanging on a freezer hook and mounds of human flesh prepared for roasting.