Yearbook 2002
Central African Republic. According to Countryaah website, national day of Central African Republic is every August 13. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed in June to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to assist the army and police in the Central African Republic financially to reduce the risk of new serious discontent following a series of revolts and coup attempts in recent years. Salary payments were reported to be delayed by up to one and a half years.
However, the unrest continued. On several occasions, Central African and Chadian border forces clashed. Relations between the countries were tense since the former commander-in-chief of the Central African Republic François Bozize moved to Chad after an armed uprising in November 2001.
In August, former President André Kolingba and 21 senior former officers were sentenced to death for a coup attempt in May 2001. All had fled the country and were investigated in their absence. Nearly 600 soldiers were sentenced to every ten years in prison for participating in the coup attempt.
At the end of October, soldiers loyal to former BoBize Bozize launched a new attack on the capital Bangui. Libyan soldiers who have protected President Ange-Félix Patassé since May 2001 drove the rebels away after six days of fierce fighting. The Chad government claimed that Central African forces killed hundreds of Chadian citizens in connection with the attempted uprising. Also a thousand members of the rebel movement MLC in Congo-Kinshasa came to the government’s rescue. The rebels were charged with murder, rape and looting, triggering revenge attacks against civilian Congolese in Bangui.
In mid-November, the government announced that the Libyan soldiers would be gradually replaced by a peacekeeping force of up to 500 men from other countries in the region.
History. – Like many African countries, the Central African Republic also went through the experience of a military government. The regime established by the coup on New Year’s Eve 1966 had particularly disturbing effects. The new president, col. J.-B. Bokassa, although starting from the usual aims of social and national renewal, has gradually engaged in an authoritarian, megalomaniac, ruthlessly oppressive policy; the country suffered from constant changes in policy, purges in the already reduced ranks of public administration, widespread corruption, the exercise of pure and simple terror.
Over time, Bokassa imparted paroxysmal tones to his power, crowning himself emperor during an extravagant and expensive ceremony (December 4, 1977) and staring at the court in Bérengo, his native village. The vagaries and acts of ferocity of Bokassa caused more than a misunderstanding with France, the former colonial power, which had privileged relations with Central African Republic. In March 1975, French President V. Giscard d’Estaing made an official visit to Bangui compromising in declarations and proofs of friendship with the dictator, and Paris contributed to the celebrations for the proclamation of the Empire.
Accused of having had some children shot to stifle a protest, Bokassa was overthrown (September 20, 1979) with an operation openly organized by France, now determined to get rid of an ally too embarrassing. The presidency was resumed by D. Dacko, who had been the first president after independence. Unable to keep the situation under control, Dacko, who on March 15, 1981 was elected president in a much contested consultation, was forced, once again with the active intervention of France, to hand over power to the military (September 1, 1981). The gen. A. Kolingba in turn let himself be tempted to manage power according to personal criteria, marginalizing the political forces that had fought Bokassa. Rassemblement démocratique centrafricain) and limits the spaces of freedom. The parliamentary elections were held in July 1987 and the municipal elections in May 1988. Surprisingly, in October 1986 Bokassa returned to his homeland, where he was tried and sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted by the president to life imprisonment. The choice of a single party was confirmed in the early months of 1991 despite popular and international pressures in favor of adopting a multi-party system.
