There was a glaring complicity between the two dictators, Bokassa and Ceuasescu, who, although were worlds apart, they had a lot in common, in particular the cunning of the small-time village satrap, overblown to parody level. They also shared the same tribal feeling about being surrounded by family in key positions, the same attraction for all that glittered, the delusions of grandeur.
Bokassa Coronation sceptre inspired Nicolae Ceausescu
In retrospect Bokassa outwitted all his contemporaries, including his French masters and returned from his exile (where he was kept prisoner in a gilded cage by his French masters), to be allowed to die a revered village elder in his native country. By contrast Ceausescu was less astute than his African pal: Nick and Elena were outfoxed by their trusted lieutenants, who had them summarily ‘judged’ by a parody Court and hastily dispatched in a carnage redolent of the parodic shoots of Carpathian bear in Romania’s mountains.
Both Nicolae and Elena claimed their innocence during their farcical kangaroo court trial of 1989, but nobody came to the rescue of the once feted Hero hailed in dithyrambic verse by his Court Poet, Adrian Paunescu:
“We love Him because this Country is free under the sun
The People of this country are free and the real leader
We love him because He embodies the conscience of the Working people
And that he makes us proud that as a man He is Romanian”
Reallly, incredible as it is in retrospect, the above ditty might have been more suitable if it was dedicated to Emperor Bokassa instead: sadly, Adrian Paunescu, Ceausescu’s fawning Court jester, had to make do with a ‘second best’!
