"ECHOES FROM A SOMBRE EMPIRE" "Dear spectators, I am the director of the film which you are going to see." "I am deeply worried about the main character of the film," "Michael Goldsmith, who has been missing in the chaos of the civil war, waged in Liberia for many weeks." "As we have lost any contact with him," "I should like to read out a letter to you which he has directed to me shortly before the start of shooting." "It has always been very important to him to explain his basic attitude... about shooting this film which he wanted to do in the film itself." ""Dear Werner, I do not want to take myself too important." "My story merely reflects an unimportant rather bizarre isolation... and nobody should make the mistake and believe... that I was spending sleepless nights since then." "On the contrary:" "I was rather cool, almost uninvolved, almost like a scientist observing himself like an insect." "Neither was I really afraid of my torturers." "There was only an almost indifferent thought:" "how far would they go this time?" "I decided to follow the traces of the past events... which still sound within myself like a remote echo." "I took this decision for one single reason... which has absolutely nothing to do with my personal experience." "Nevertheless I want to start this week already." "In fact, I was dreaming, for the second time now... that crabs intruded the earth... large, orange crabs that came out of the sea." "Nobody cared about them in the beginning." "But they became more and more." "Finally there were so many of them that I got scared." "In the end, they covered the whole world in many layers on top of one another." "The entire globe was covered with them."" "Good day, Madame." " Good day, Monsieur." " I am sorry to bother you on a Sunday." "I have a particular reason to be interested in the emperor, you know." "He almost killed me once." "I don't know if you realised that." " No, I didn't." "And there are a number of things which I can remember." "There are a number of things I remember which I would like to put right with history." "I would like you to explain a few things to me." "My name is Michael Goldsmith." "Was it you who called on the phone?" " I did call you." "Perhaps we could sit down?" "Yes, we can sit down." "You know, Madame..." "I experienced quite a lot with the Emperor, unreal experiences, as unreal as this room and these photographs." "It seems quite strange for me... to be sitting here and looking at these photographs." "You know, all these photographs... all these photographs remind me to a certain extent... about an operetta which he staged for himself." "It is... it is quite strange to see... a collection of photographs of him and of his family... with Dien Bien Phu, with Napoleon..." "You know, for me, it is something really fascinating... that a man who knew he was condemned to death in his country... that he actually returns of his own free will... to present himself to the authorities of that country... and probably to present himself to the law." "Er... can you explain that to me?" "What went through his mind for him... to leave this castle... and to go via all types of routes in order to go back to Bangui?" "He always wanted to return." " Did he know that he had been sentenced to death?" "Yes, he knew that he had been sentenced to death." "And he thought that he was going to be able to overcome all that just by being there?" "Perhaps that went through his mind." "Yes." "And certainly the two men who were here and who accompanied you in the plane." "Do you know anything about them?" "Do you know who they were and where they came from?" "Do you know which French service they came from...?" "No..." "I don't know which French service they came from." "I know they came here with a lawyer, a French lawyer." " Oh, with a third person?" " Yes." "Yes... and these three men accompanied him... er... during the journey to Brussels...?" " Yes, the lawyer stayed here... and it was the two others who accompanied us." "The journey to Brussels... yes..." "there was one who stayed... and one who took the plane with us." "There was apparently a moment... when Bokassa did not feel at all comfortable." "What happened in the plane?" "It wasn't that he didn't feel comfortable any more but he was... he was just quiet." "During the whole journey?" " Not during the whole journey." "When they were due to arrive in Bangui." "Yes, and what happened then?" " It was then that he said to me:" ""Augustine, the journey has misfired." I asked him: "Why?"" "He didn't say anything but he thought the journey has misfired." "It's five years now since I was detained... with just a simple army pension." "23 years captain of the French Army." "23 years and what do I get from it as a pension?" "Well..." "let's say it amounts to 7.000 Francs a month... but with... social security... with the deduction for social security and the deduction for local taxes... and other things I am not left with anything more than 5.998 Francs... that I get each month." "What I want is to return to my country." "What I want is not the passport stories as you have heard." "Passports to go where?" "And where does the money come from?" "You know very well that if you want to travel with a passport, then you have... to pay for your ticket first of all, but what am I going to use to pay my ticket with?" "And if you travel, you have to stay in a hotel... in a country." "But if I am going to stay in a hotel what am I going to pay with?" "So all the false rumours and the passport stories don't interest me one little bit." "What interests me is that the French government authorises... me to be able to go back to my country." "It has stopped me, there is a government... which has stopped me... well..." "but I am addressing a prayer, a very earnest prayer to President Mitterand's government... to let me go back with my children." "Contrary to the French Constitution," "of the Charter of the United Nations," "of the universal declaration of Human Rights... and also the Charter... of the Organisation of African unity." "Mr. President of the French Republic, in following the African policy of Giscard," "do you look on the Central Africa... as being a private hunting ground, belonging to France?" "Mr. President of the French Republic, can you explain to us the difference between... a military occupied foreign country... placed under your authority... and the independence of a sovereign... state recognised by UNO and by OAU?" "Does Central Africa have a flag and does it have a national anthem or not?" "If I feel like a prisoner..." "I am not very keen at approaching this... or that head of state so that I don't give the impression of begging, you see." "I don't like begging but I want to claim my right to go back to my country, head of state or no head of state, I must return because it is my country." "Because I have my parents and my children there." "I have my family and I have my land to cultivate." "Just look, Hadricourt, what can I do here in the way of cultivation... or in the way of breeding?" "I can't do anything..." "In actual fact he did not like this castle." " It isn't that he did not like the castle... but one could feel in him that he did not want to stay." "It was just a provisional stay-over for him." " Yes, just a provisional stay over, he had to go back home." "Even if he had been sentenced to death." "Did he say that?" " Yes." "He said that he had been sentenced to death... and that he preferred to go back home to allow himself to be judged... and that if he had to die he would die at home." " Did he actually say that?" " Yes." "You know, the children are grown up now... and the children are not mine." "They do what they want." "They are 17, 16 and 15 years old." "When I say to one of the children "you do that"... and if they do not want to do it, I can't force them, can I?" "How did they spend their time?" "The children?" " Yes, since you have been back here?" "Been back here..." "they do what they want." "They go to school when they want." "I am called in by the police..." "I am called in by the school and all that." "They get themselves stopped..." " Why?" "Because they go out at night!" "They are minors." "Well, when they take the train and don't pay for their ticket, the ticket collector... he stops you, doesn't he?" " They do that as well?" " Yes, they do that!" "And you have no control over them..." " I have no control over them!" "It was the father who had, who was the one with the real authority over the children, but I didn't have any." " And so when he was there, they didn't do things like that?" "When he was there, no, they didn't." " Do they know why he has been sentenced?" "They know why he has been sentenced, yes." " All of them, even yours?" "Yes, the little one..." "He asked me the question not very long ago." "Because when he was at school and there was one of his friends who asked him," ""Is it right that your father is in prison?"" "Then he gave him a kick and they had a fight." "He even cried." "He came and asked me, "Is it true that father is in prison?"" "I replied "no" to him." " You said "no" to him?" " "No"!" "I told him that he should not listen to everything that people say." "How many children were there in total?" "How many children were there, how many children did he have... does he have?" "He said he had 54 children." "54 children..." " Yes." "And how many mothers?" " There were quite a few mothers." "You don't know how many mothers." " No, I don't." "Oh, my mother, er..." "I don't know her, but I have heard of her." "I have some photographs of her but apart from that I don't know her." "My father got to know her when she was about 18 years old... when... when she..." "when she left, I was..." "I was about 2 months old." "2 months." "And tell me where he met her and how." " I do not know." "She was a dancer and, well, she..." "It was normally she who was allowed to be the Empress... but as it had to be someone from my fathers country, then she just left." "She was Rumanian." "Yes, she is Rumanian." "Me, I... er..." "I don't know very much about my mother at all." "I know that I left her." "I was a year old." "That's all I know that she is Chinese." "Do you have any photographs?" " What?" "Do you have any photographs?" "Please say." "Sometimes there are people who say to us," ""Is it true that you eat people?" or things like that..." "But..." "But afterwards it's enough to say no to them and then to yell... at them a bit, that's all!" " And then that they eat children, that's not right, is it?" "Yes, eating children for example, they know it's wrong... because he would have eaten us alive since then." " Yes, he would have eaten us." "If we had been one of his descendants, we would have eaten all those around us." "To have said... that I am a cannibal and that I kill children... but..." "I am not a cannibal at all." "By the way, the object of this conference... is that we talk about this problem of cannibalism." "I am not a cannibal." "I am not one." "If you read my biography... then you will see that I have not deserved it." "And then he continues:" ""First of all I get some rice... and then I season it with onions and rice... and with all that is necessary for a 'bonne cuisine'."" "And as there was no-one to help him... he carried the body all on his own apparently without any difficulty." "He put it on the oven that must have been an absolutely gigantic oven... and he started to turn it, crying at the same time." "He took it off the oven and put it back on again." "He began to add flavouring once again and then... just listen carefully... listen carefully how justice was restored in 1980..." ""I put the body on the stove... and the hand of this person, the dead person, quite simply..." "the hand of the person... came off from my arm and it moved along the floor without stopping."" "Can you imagine this scene?" "This hand in Berengo's kitchen... which is living all on its own and which is moving around." "It is on the testimony of this man... that the Criminal Court of Bangui... sentenced Jean Bedel Bokassa in 1980." "Have you heard... have you heard about the human flesh which he ate?" "But at the trial all the witnesses refused to give testimony... they did at last but they were threatened at home." "At the trial there were a lot ofwitnesses." "But what... what is the real truth?" " The truth is that he ate human flesh." "Did you see him doing it?" " I heard about it." "I heard it from all those who were all round him... who were close to him and who did all this for him." " I heard about it." "But as there weren't any witnesses, apparently the trial did not follow that up." "But the Central African was looked on like an animal... like a dog..." "And you can love your dog... and look after it but he didn't look after any Central African." "The proof, the officials didn't have their salaries." "And when a Central African committed the slightest mistake... it all depended on the Bokassa's mood." "There were days when Bokassa said... he said, "Why did you do that?" "Just disappear and get lost."" "And then afterwards there were days when... the person was beaten to death for the same mistake." "No, it wasn't a life which was just and equitable in any way." "I know that thieves had their ears cut off, didn't they?" "That's right." "He cut off the thieves' ears." "These thieves lived with their ears cut off." "But before cutting off their ears... he went down to the prison himself and he beat them... he tortured them... he beat the thieves who were in the prison." "Some of them were dead." "And he displayed the bodies and the wounded to the public for 24 hours." "And he did this to the students as well, didn't he?" "He went himself to the prison..." "to kill some of them." "Yes, that's what was said at the trial as well." "I said to myself that I had to regard Bokassa as an enemy... and after I had been liberated I became obsessed with the idea... of doing everything to overthrow him." "But I was very calm and discreet." "When I was called to the government on certain occasions to this government." "I was really polite so that he didn't realise anything." "I was very polite and very correct with him." "He even invited me privately:" "we went for a meal in his plane and we shared the same apartment." "He made me go with him to Uganda and to Zaire." " Did he really?" "Yes, he did, to the lvory Coast." " And did he threaten you sometimes?" " Yes, very often." "What did he do?" " What did you say?" " How did he threaten you?" "He said "Oh, but the people say that the president should return as president... but before that happens I would torture him and then I would kill him."" "And he said that in front of all the ministers and counsellors." "And when that wasn't possible, there were moments when the council of ministers... were arriving and he was taking out all kinds of automatic pistols... and mitrailles, putting them on the table, saying:" ""Well, if anyone wants to replace me as president let him raise his hand now." "I want to let him know what ammunition I use."" "He said that to intimidate you?" " Yes, always with intimidation in mind." "One day after sounding out opinions the people said:" ""Down with Bokassa." "We want President Dacko to return... because we still fond memories of him"." "Yes..." " And when he heard about this... he said: "Well, my dear Dacko, I am sorry for you"." "Later on he called me "David"... because he called me by my first name sometimes because we were both parents." ""Oh, but I pity you for the fate that I am reserving for you." "Before the people call for you to become president..." "I am going to torture you before you are killed." "I pity you for the fate that I have reserved for you."" "He said this in front of all the ministers and the counsellors." "At the end I managed to escape eventually and to leave the country discreetly." "And finally, the Empire..." "who had the idea of this Empire?" "Bokassa." " He himself?" " He thought he was Napoleon." "Oh, I think it is all an evolution of character." "At the beginning I think Bokassa was a small peasant... whose father had been killed by the settlers and who joined the army and who led the existence of a soldier." "It was the war..." "A french soldier?" " A french soldier." "And he will always be very proud to have been a French soldier... and the famous legend of Bokassa the mercenary sub-officer... will always exist even when Bokassa is no longer captain of the French army." "So he leaves, he goes to war and he is on the side of the vanquishers... with a head who is General de Gaulle who is the general vanquisher and absolute... myth for him and then, as the years go by, he lives in reality like a French citizen." "He is not African." "He leaves Africa." "He is 18 and will return there." "He will have spent 20 years outside his country in France and in Indo-China... because he went to war in Indo-China and he returned to Africa." "It is..." "I was going to say a French officer who is returning home but someone... who at the same time feels superior to the other Africans because he had really lived... he had travelled throughout the world and had led French soldiers... white, and when he took command at the beginning." "I think he was a young officer... who was in that class of progressive officers of the 60s." "And then, very quickly because it is what Saint Just said:" ""Absolute power corrupts absolutely"." "It is true that during the course of the years... he is not going to stop he is where he is." "First of all he is going to be colonel, then general, marshal, president for life... and then emperor." "That's not enough for him." "There is always a type of yearning and a quest and there is always this ambiguity... with him to be very African..." "he knew his people very well... and, at the same time, I would not say contempt but the feeling... of being somebody above the others and separate from them..." "And then it is true that the attention which the world... gave him did not help things because of his eccentricities." "After he was always received by all the foreign states." "If you look at a lot of official ceremonies... he is regarded as head of state." "He spoke at the general assembly of the United Nations." "He was received by the Pope." "Consequently, he is someone who finally says to himself:" ""I proclaimed myself emperor in the presence of the world and the world accepted it."" "This, this is really the end of the Empire." "Do you know who it is?" "Who is it?" "Bokassa." " Bokassa?" "He had already fallen before you were born, I think." "Oh, my God, how things have changed." "You know, the police brought me by car there." "I was in handcuffs." "They took the handcuffs off and I came forward." "I came forward all on my own and the Emperor came towards me." "And we met each other here." "I gave a bow and said, "Your Majesty" very respectfully because..." "I thought he was going to talk with me." "Instead of which he was like that... he was furious and he came towards me... and raised his walking stick and hit me on the head very hard and I fell down." "And, you know, they were all round me." "There was a small person if I remember rightly, there was a small person, he must have been about your age, dressed as a marshal of the army." "and they all beat me unmercifully and I fell to the ground." "My glasses, my glasses fell to the ground." "Like that, and I saw Bokassa's foot coming down onto my glasses... and then he crushed them, like that, saying: "There we are." "You will have to manage without these glasses."" "Just like that I stayed for a month in prison without my glasses." "That was very hard." "Just look at that, that's the tapestry, it's made of velvet." "Yes." " And who took it away?" "The people from the neighborhood." " Yes." "They used it to upholster their rooms." "And that's..." "What's that?" "A circular bed." " A circular bed?" "It was completely dismounted and stolen by the plunderers, wasn't it?" "How many wives did Bokassa have?" " I don't know." " You don't know." "That's the end of the Empire." "Just think of it, he kept millions there, didn't he?" "Can you open this for me?" " Yes." "There were..." "All the treasures of the country were in there." "Come and look." "Just look at that?" "It is true that it was opened with a pistol." " With a pistol?" "Oh... yes." "This is the kitchen, isn't it?" "That..." "And he cooked people here sometimes?" "Is it true?" " It's true." "There were bodies here which were kept in the fridge." "There's the fridge." " The fridge, there?" "It was there that he prepared the bodies for consumption." "He put them in there." "Mr. Dacko, you were president... of Central Africa before Bokassa and afterwards." "There was the story of how you were imprisoned..." "It must have been very hard, wasn't it?" " Yes, it was very hard, yes." "I was three and a half years in prison without talking to anyone." "Three and a half years?" " Yes." "He refused to allow me to talk to anyone." "A soldier brought me something to eat and some water." "He was not allowed to talk to me." " Was it Camp de Roux or N'garagba?" "Some of the time in Camp de Roux and some of the time in N'garagba." "And what did they do to you in the cell?" " I was naked, with chains on my feet." "With handcuffs on my hands." "And then naked on the cement." "All the time?" " All the time!" "When was it?" " Up to '69." "And afterwards I was assigned to the residence in the village... for another three and a half years." "Without being able to move out of the house." "I was in prison for 7 years one way or another." "Berengo was rich in anecdotes:" "incidents which make me laugh today but which were tragic at the point of time." "The people talked a lot about the Rumanian woman." "After having settled the Rumanian in the Kolongo villa there was a period of time... when the Emperor didn't come any more." "And because he didn't come any more, what did the Rumanian do?" "She was very young and very beautiful and she still wanted to live." "She finished up by corrupting his guards." "And, one by one, she asked the guards to share Bokassa's bed." "And when Bokassa got to know about it after an enquiry... those guards who had shared his bed were put under arrest." "They were executed." "The rumanian, for example." "At one point of time Bokassa was on an official visit in Rumania... and he met a dancer from the ballet group." "He found her to his liking and finally the dancer left with him." "And then she disappeared." "And so people are going to say that it was Bokassa." "And then it was learned later on that she was really an agent of the Securitate... and that she actually returned to Rumania once she had been "grilled"." "When she returned the Rumanian lived in another villa." "And one morning after having had breakfast she took the bicycle of her hotel boy." "She took the bicycle, got on it and went for a ride around the village... just at the moment when Bokassa returned." "And Bokassa, furious at seeing that his wife was on the bicycle of the hotel boy said:" ""So, so... this boy was having an affair with my wife."" "And in a scene of jealousy he had the hotel boy beaten to death." "It was even the cause of the death of a number of Central Africans." "You know, there were moments when we wondered... where we were going and what would happen to us." "Take the Russians, for example, they..." "after having obtained the authorisation... from the Government to visit Lobaye." "When they returned to the Pissa commissariat 70 kilometres from Bangui... they were intercepted on the instructions of Bokassa and brought to Berengo." "For 2 hours they were kept standing and Bokassa insulted the Russians... and talked of Russia as being the cause of all the wars which had taken place... throughout the world and all the demonstrations in the world," "and after two hours, after having maligned them, he said "please come into my salon."" "He offered them champagne and whisky and then said..." ""forget everything I have said" and then he drove back to Bangui." "So you can see..." "As soon as he assumed power he asked the French ambassador... to find the daughter which he had with a Vietnamese whilst he was in Vietnam." "Immediately afterwards, lady presented his daughter and Bokassa baptised her as Martine." "The formalities were completed and she was sent to Bangui... where she was received like a head of state with motorcycles... and guards of honour and all that." "Then there's the story of the two Martines." "It is a really extraordinary story because Bokassa was serving in Indo-China... and like a lot of French soldiers serving in Indo-China... he had quite a few friendships and relationships with the local population." "He fell in love with a young Indo-Chinese girl and had a daughter." "Then he left without taking care of her at all." "And then, when he returned to power... and when he had taken his fill of all the honour involved, he wanted to find his daughter again." "Then he found the first daughter who was called Martine." "And then, lo and behold... it was realised that the Martine who he thought was his daughter... wasn't his real daughter at all." "Then the second Martine arrived in Bangui." "And there is Bokassa who found himselfwith two daughters." "And then he said very generously: "I will keep even the one who has deceived me... as my daughter"." "And so he had two daughters and he brought them together." "And it is extraordinary... how fate persisted in repeating the same things for the two girls." "Then the two Martines were to get married on the same day." "They were going to marry two Central African personalities:" "one was going to marry Doctor Dédé Abodé... and the other was going to marry Captain Obrou." "And, curiously enough... the two son-in-laws suffered the same fate." "Captain Obrou attempted a coup d'état." "Bokassa was at the Bangui airport one day... and suddenly someone threw hand grenades and then they didn't explode... which reinforced the legend of"Bokassa la baraqua"." "Fidel Obrou was arrested, condemned to death and executed." "On the other hand, the other son-in-law, Bruno Dédé Abodé... followed in the footsteps of his father-in-law... and he was involved in the assassination... of the person whom I could almost call his nephew." "In other words, the son of Obrou died in mysterious circumstances in the clinic..." "A baby?" " A baby, a newly-born baby..." "In actual fact it was poisoned and it was Bruno Dédé Abodé... who was actually accused of having arranged the assassination." "On the fall of Bokassa amongst the charges which were levied against Dédé Abodé... he was charged with the death of the child and he was sentenced to death and executed." "How are you going to explain the story?" "It is... something which which is true." "...which is true." "Is it the type of thing which you read about in books... in novels, which you see in the cinema but it is..." "It is just for this reason that this story is interesting, isn't it?" "Yes, but I think it is fate and God who made it." "Yes." " There." "It was destiny and God which made it... that my father, who left to go to war in Vietnam... got to know my mother, that she saw that he had an accident... that he broke a left finger, that he would never be able to bend the finger again." "You see, he has always had a finger like that." " Oh yes." "And when you see that my father always wears a large ring like that to hide it." "It was thanks to that finger that my mother was able to recognise her husband." "Because my mother asked him, if he had broken his finger on such and such a day... at such and such a time when she was pregnant with me." "And my father was then sure... thanks to the finger, "Yes, my wife and my daughter Martine."" "But nonetheless my father always thought that the first Martine was his daughter." "He didn't worry about it any more." "But what interested me was your story... with your so-called sister." "How did it happen exactly?" "Did she always know that she was not really Bokassa's daughter?" "No, no, she didn't know at all." " She really didn't know?" " No." "Even when I arrived she didn't know who I was." "She thought I was a secretary of my father." "She didn't realise that I was a Vietnamese just like her!" "So she really thought she was Bokassa's daughter?" "No, she knew only too well because she had been warned." "She said that everyone in his country always said..." ""Passi, Passi" to her and Passi was his name." "And there was someone who came to look for her mother... and offered her 5'000 dollars for her to go to Central Africa... in order to identify a man who said that he was your father." "But he wasn't your father." "But a President." "It wasn't necessary that..." "Was it was the French who did it?" " Er, yes..." "It was someone who worked in the French Consulate in Vietnam... who said that she had become an adoptive child." " Yes." "And we lived together for two years." "Ah, ah." "In Bangui?" " Yes." "We were in the same house for two years... with my father, just like a normal family." "And eventually the two of you got married on the same day..." "Yes, it happened." "When I arrived from Central Africa..." "Martine had already arrived well before me." "But I don't hold it against her..." "I don't hold it against her because she was not to blame." "It was never her fault." "It was what other people did that put her in her place." "She was there to bear the consequences." "I was there to share fortune and ill-fortune with her both of us." "Unfortunately it didn't end well for both of us... both for me and for her as well." "And I married and she also found herself a husband." "My father said: "So that one daughter does not become jealous of the other... we will hold the marriage on the same day." "The one of them will not be able to say... that her marriage was bigger and the other was smaller." "On the same day with the same guests and with the same presents."" "We got married." "I view of the fact that my sister's husband married with one idea in mind... he had to pay for that with his life." "And my husband, he has paid for it... and it has also enchained my life at the same time." "And my husband was... he was asked to do a job of work and he did it." "No-one is accused when things turn out alright." "But once you are no longer in power..." "when the boot is on the other foot... then everyone is accused." "People pointed out what my husband had done." "This and all that..." "He was sentenced..." "And then, that was all..." "The husband of the Martine in question, of the wrong Martine... he was accused of a coup d'état and was executed." " Obrou?" " Yes." "He was executed." "Then it was decided to repatriate his wife Martine... the wrong Martine." "That was in February '76." "She was to have been repatriated to Vietnam... but she never took the plane to Bangui." "She disappeared from circulation." "She was killed as well." " Yes, yes." "And her child as well?" " Yes." "It wasn't the doctor..." "Dédé Abodé who had been sentenced to death." "Yes, by the Bangui tribunal." "For having..." " For having killed the child, yes." "You know, I was in... the N'garagba prison for a month and..." "Were you?" " Yes, I was." "At the very beginning Bokassa... sentenced me to death as a spy." " You?" "Yes." "And I was in the same cell... as your brother-in-law Obrou for a week." "Yes." " He wrote an inscription on the wall... asking the people who could read it... to look after his family and all that." "It was dramatic." "He really sentenced me to death, in just a moment." "Dacko, you know, the president Dacko who followed... he had me come to his office and he showed it to me." "He said: "There you are." "It was Bokassa who signed your death sentence."" "I was a journalist." " Oh, you came to the country as a journalist!" "I was there as a journalist who went to do a report on the coronation... which was supposed to be taking place." "An excellent impression." "Please send my regards to all the personnel... of Antenne 2 and particularly to France, to the president of the French Republic, to the Prime Minister, to Jacques Chirac and to Mr. Jacques Rocard... and all my French friends all the police and particularly to Admiral Phillipe De Gaulle... and to the whole family of General De Gaulle." "Please tell them that their valiant soldier, Bokassa Jean Bedel... of the Forces Francaises Libres, F.F.L., fighting good, good, withdraw... exceptional amongst African combatants." "He has replied to the justice of his country." "Can you explain to me a little how it happened and how he is." "Yes, of course." "I can see him." "I don't have any bureaucratic obstacles to overcome." "In the same way as in all other countries of the world lawyers have the right... to see their clients." "And it is in this position as a lawyer that I can see him." "I have been to see him every day since I returned to Bangui." "I can see him in his prison, in his type of a castle... as Louis-Ferdinand Céline would say." "It is there that he is detained, in a military enclosure in a military prison." "In actual fact it is a military prison." "He occupies a cell which is probably... 5 x 3 metres and which is a real cell for prisoners... just like all other prisoners." "He is isolated, completely isolated." "He goes out twice a day into a courtyard... each time for an hour's walk." "But he is alone when he goes for a walk." "He doesn't ever see anyone, he..." " He only sees his guards certainly." " Yes." "And on Saturdays he can see various members of his family:" "his wives, his sisters, and his relations, those who come and bring him a bit of food." "Yes, those who come to see him every Saturday." "Otherwise he only goes out twice a day in the courtyard... which is about 5 x 10 metres... and in which there is a type of large wooden chair... in which he sits and then there is another chair, all broken, in which I sit." "Naturally I let him have the good chair." "And we speak quite openly there." "We have more than an hour to talk with each other." "Since my arrival in Bangui." "Are there no guards watching?" " During the conversation there are no guards around." "Nevertheless, you know that the conversations, the correspondence lawyers and clients are always secret." "And they always respect this secrecy here." "It should be remembered that the prisoner is always alone, a very isolated person and the lawyer means a lot to him." "He also writes to me very often and to show you what extent he is mystical... he always makes the sign of the cross to me now." "At the beginning he signed his letters "Bokassa 1"... and now he always signs "The Apostle Bokassa 1"." "He thinks he is a sort of apostle of Christ." "And people talk a lot about his religious obsessions..." "Is there..." " I don't think that they are obsessions, they are real, they are." "For more than a year now he has been in a... in a complete mysticism." "He only reads religious books." " Does he really?" "Except for papers and journals, he reads the Bible." "Yesterday he showed me all the papers and all the religious books which he had:" "the Bible of Jerusalem and other prayer books... and I could see that the pages were worn." "It is true that he reads them every day." "He wears a cross and he comes to see me in very simple clothes." "It is very, very touching:" "the first day he was in his pyjamas... the second day he was in a type of djellaba, the third day in a sort of laced shirt... all of them very simple." "And he always wears a cross round his neck." "And I can..." "I can confirm that he actually only reads religious books, the Bible of Jerusalem in particular." " Yes, that..." "I don't think he was ever mad and that he is mad." "No, I don't think so." "He finally married you by force." " Yes, by force." "And then it lasted two years afterwards didn't it?" "Yes, about two years, two and a half years..." "I did a little holiday job, er..." "in a bank." "A bank?" " Yes, in Bangui." "And..." "I don't know whether I should tell you all the details." "It was he who sent for me then." "He sent for me... he sent for me through a man who came there to the bank and he said to me:" ""Your papa would like to see you."" "Your papa would like to see you." " And there I was!" "At that moment I did not understand who my papa was." "Yes, and you went then?" " No, oh no." "I asked him..." "I asked him:" ""But who is my papa?", and he told me about him." "And what happened then?" " What happened then..." "This man led me to the Palace then." "Yes." " And then it was on that day that I met him..." "And it made quite a strange impression on me..." "Yes." "...to see... to see Bokassa." "Yes." "He was already head of state, he..." " He was... was already head of state and he had already become a legend." "Yes." " A myth." " Yes." "A somewhat terrifying myth... and it shocked me to see him like that." "At that time I was still innocent..." "very innocent and..." "And then he took me by the hand and he carried me into his room." "And in this room there was a large mirror... and when I saw myself in this mirror with him... at my side and he... he had actually started to undress me... and always talking, with very gentle words." "When I saw myself in this mirror with him..." "I had..." "I was in short I practically had a nervous breakdown." "I started to cry but it was crying like a child." "Crying with very big sobs and... and I couldn't restrain myself any more." "And he understood." "He still had a trait of humanity." " He sent you away." "Yes, he allowed me to return home." "And then, when I had told my mother what had happened... she sent for a car and she packed us all into the car... and then we left that very night but it was like a catastrophe." "And when we found our way to this frontier town the police came." "We saw the police coming and they asked us to follow them." "And in this way... we were detained in this frontier town." "Because, as you know, the political detainees were not in the same place... as the others, in a place called "La Porte Rouge"." "And there was "La Porte Rouge" for men and "La Porte Rouge" for women." "And my brothers were at "La Porte Rouge" for men." "And we never saw each other during the two years which we spent in this prison... even though we were close to each other." "One night someone opened the cell... we were already sleeping..." "someone opened the cell... and we saw two armed militaries and a small machine gun." "The impression they made was terrible... and we didn't know where we were going, obviously." "And at that particular moment... we were sure that something was going to happen... or that we were going to disappear in one way or another... that was for sure because the night..." "I was always very thin as well... very bony and very weak as well and this was the state... that I was in when I found myself... in his apartment in the Palais de la Renaissance." "And this time he was there he was there waiting for me when I arrived." "He took me by the hand as he had always done before." "Very gently as if nothing..." "as if nothing had happened." "He took me by the hand and he called me "my daughter" as he used to do before and then he carried me to the bathroom." "He filled the bath with warm water and with bath foam." "He made a foam bath and he put me into the bath." "He... in actual fact he almost treated me like a child." "And I was..." "I really was very, very weak... and I couldn't have done all that myself." "And... and then..." "I got out of the bath... and he continued to talk to me." "I understood at that particular moment... that this time I was going to succumb and be free." "But it wasn't for me as far as I personally was concerned..." "It was more for my relatives, er..." "my brothers, above all my brothers." "Because the youngest one was 14 at that point of time." "And, as you know, it was easy to die in these prisons..." "And, finally, I stayed in this apartment for three days... and at the end of the third day I dared to take the risk." ""My relatives, my mother and my brothers and sisters... how are they?" "What is going to happen to them?"" "It was then that he said:" ""Oh, but I have forgotten them." "I shall send for them immediately."" "You know, whilst you were in prison... in N'garagba I was there as well." "Perhaps you didn't hear about me." "No I didn't, that is certain..." " But I was in a cell." "I was chained, both my hands and my feet..." "But why?" "What..." " Because he had decided that I was a spy." "Just like that?" "A French spy?" "In fact he suspected me of being a South African spy." "It was strange." "I had done a report on his coronation." "Oh yes." " And... the report..." "I sent it by telex and the telex was messed up... because there was a power failure in the transmission station... in the village and everything went out all messed up." "Then the superintendent of the post office, he took the copy of the telex... and he ran to the police and said to them:" ""We have a spy, we have a spy." "This has all been sent by code."" "I can't recall my transfer to Bangui." "You know, they collected me and I was completely..." "Yes, unconscious, yes." " Unconscious." "And it took 10 or 12 days... in the prison in Bangui before I realised that I wasn't in Berengo any more." "But you could have died?" " Yes, of course." "And then, what is surprising as well is that over and above the appearance of a trial..." "I was about to say very westernised... there were all the non-dits and all the African beliefs assembled there." "I can remember this woman for example:" "Bokassa was accused of having set up... the assassination of General Mandaba who was one of the officers of the gendarmerie." "And the president said to Bokassa:" ""You had Mandaba killed but why did you kill his mother?"" "And then they talked about the mother of Mandaba... and the mother of General Obrou and they said, "But this woman has three bosoms."" "And this really astonished us obviously:" "why were they interested in that?" "And it was then that all the beliefs... and creeds were revived because a woman had three bosoms." "She could be a witch." "If she is a witch, it is not as serious as if she were the mother of a family." "It was then that the very African trait came to the surface... but it never came out in the open." "Is this all there is of the zoological garden here?" " Yes, yes." "Oh... because I am looking for the animals which fed... on human beings at the time of Bokassa in his... in the garden in Kolongo, you know." "The garden in Kolongo?" " That's down there in Kolongo." "But here..." "Yes, but the lions which he had down there..." "The lions, here they are." " Are they here?" "Did they die eventually?" "Yes, they have been dead since..." "at least since '84." "Yes, and the crocodiles from the other side?" "Yes, the crocodiles, they are still here." "Over there in the water." "Where are..." "where are the crocodiles?" "They're over there, the crocodiles." " There, in the pool?" " Yes." "Because they ate human beings as well." " Where was that?" "In Kolongo, yes." "Because he kept them in the pool and the people... who had been condemned, they were thrown to the crocodiles or to the lions." "Because the lions were here." "Yes." " Yes, there are two lions here." "That over there..." "that's a chimpanzee, isn't it?" "Perhaps it's a chimpanzee." "He said that it was a gorilla... but he said that it was a chimpanzee as well." "I don't know which it is." "No, it's not a gorilla." "A gorilla's as big as that." "Monsieur, do you have a cigarette?" " A cigarette?" "Oh!" "No, you must, you must..." "There now." "I can't look at this any more." "Can you turn it off now?"