Central African Republic 20000 Francs Gold coin 1970 President Jean Bedel Bokassa
Subject: 10th Anniversary of Independence; Operation Bokassa
The former French territory became an independent Republic in 1960.
Obverse: Bust of President Jean Bedel Bokassa left, divides dates 1960-1970.
Reverse: Symbols of independence & motto: operation Bokassa; denomination below.
Mint Place: Monnaie de Paris (Paris Mint, France)
Mintage: 4000.
Composition: Gold.
Fineness: 0.9000.
Weight: 70.0000 g.
AGW: 2.0254 oz.
The Central African Republic (CAR; Sango: Ködörösêse tî Bêafrîka; French: République centrafricaine, or Centrafrique) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo to the south and Cameroon to the west. The CAR covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi) and had an estimated population of around 4.7 million as of 2014.
Most of the CAR consists of Sudano-Guinean savannas, but the country also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin (which flows into the Congo), while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad.
What is today the Central African Republic has been inhabited for millennia; however, the country's current borders were established by France, which ruled the country as a colony starting in the late 19th century. After gaining independence from France in 1960, the Central African Republic was ruled by a series of autocratic leaders; by the 1990s, calls for democracy led to the first multi-party democratic elections in 1993. Ange-Félix Patassé became president, but was later removed by General François Bozizé in the 2003 coup. The Central African Republic Bush War began in 2004 and, despite a peace treaty in 2007 and another in 2011, fighting broke out between government, Muslim, and Christian factions in December 2012, leading to ethnic and religious cleansing and massive population displacement in 2013 and 2014.
Despite its significant mineral deposits and other resources, such as uranium reserves, crude oil, gold, diamonds, lumber, and hydropower, as well as significant quantities of arable land, the Central African Republic is among the ten poorest countries in the world. As of 2013, according to the Human Development Index (HDI), the country had a low level of human development, ranking 185th out of 187 countries.
Independence 1960
In the Ubangi-Shari Territorial Assembly election in 1957, MESAN (French: Mouvement pour l'évolution sociale de l'Afrique noire - Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa) captured 347,000 out of the total 356,000 votes, and won every legislative seat, which led to Boganda being elected president of the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa and vice-president of the Ubangi-Shari Government Council. Within a year, he declared the establishment of the Central African Republic and served as the country's first prime minister. MESAN continued to exist, but its role was limited. After Boganda's death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, his cousin, David Dacko, took control of MESAN and became the country's first president after the CAR had formally received independence from France. Dacko threw out his political rivals, including former Prime Minister and Mouvement d'évolution démocratique de l'Afrique centrale (MEDAC), leader Abel Goumba, who he forced into exile in France. With all opposition parties suppressed by November 1962, Dacko declared MESAN as the official party of the state.
Bokassa and the Central African Empire 1965–1979
On 31 December 1965, Dacko was overthrown in the Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. President Bokassa declared himself President for Life in 1972, and named himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire (as the country was renamed) on 4 December 1976. A year later, Emperor Bokassa crowned himself in a lavish and expensive ceremony that was ridiculed by much of the world.
In April 1979, young students protested against Bokassa's decree that all school attendees would need to buy uniforms from a company owned by one of his wives. The government violently suppressed the protests, killing 100 children and teenagers. Bokassa himself may have been personally involved in some of the killings. In September 1979, France overthrew Bokassa and "restored" Dacko to power (subsequently restoring the name of the country to the Central African Republic). Dacko, in turn, was again overthrown in a coup by General André Kolingba on 1 September 1981.