Additional information:
- after he couped David Dacko, they made a new constitution which had the Vichy-regime model as a base;
- Bokassa's father was a symbol of the resistance against colonial powers, he was some village elder and when they demanded to send people to forced labor, he denied it, then he was beaten to death by the French colonial thugs;
- his mother died weeks after (I kinda remember suicide) so he was raised by French missionaries from his young childhood;
- it seems he had a love-hate relationship with France, he was very much inspired by them, especially by Napoleon;
- after he became Emperor he made the appearance of not controlling the country directly, which reminds me of Gaddafi's method;
- he converted to Islam in 1976 October, but when they set up the Empire in December, he abandoned it, like on a whim;
- he expelled his oldest son, Prince Georges, from his country.
Well, that's about the insight I could gain in short notice. Not sure if I wanna continue the mining for info.