Ange-Félix Patassé
Encyclopedia
Ange-Félix Patassé was a Central African politician who was President of the Central African Republic
from 1993 until 2003, when he was deposed
by the rebel leader François Bozizé
. Patassé was the first president in the CAR's history (since 1960) to be chosen in what was generally regarded as a fairly democratic election (1993) in that it was brought about by donor pressure on the Kolingba regime and assisted by the UN Electoral Assistance Unit. He was chosen a second time in a fair election (1999) as well. However, during his first term in office (1993–1999), three military mutinies in 1996–1997 led to increasing conflict between so-called "northerners" (like Patassé) and "southerners" (like his predecessor President André Kolingba
). Expatriate mediators and peacekeeping troops were brought in to negotiate peace accords between Patassé and the mutineers and to maintain law and order. During his second term as president, Patassé increasingly lost the support of many of his long-time allies as well as the French, who had intervened to support him during his first term in office. Patassé was ousted in March 2003 and went into exile in Togo
.
, the capital of the northwestern province of Ouham Pendé in the colony of Ubangi-Shari in French Equatorial Africa
, and he belonged to the Sara-Kaba ethnic group which predominates in the region around Paoua. Patassé's father, Paul Ngakoutou, who had served in the Free French military forces during the Second World War and afterwards worked for the colonial administration in the Province of Ouham-Pendé, was a member of the Sara-kaba people and was raised in a small village to the northeast of Boguila. Patassé's mother, Véronique Goumba, belonged to the Kare
ethnic group of northwestern Ubangi-Shari. As Patassé spent much of his youth in Paoua he was associated with the Ouham-Pendé
province and many of his most loyal political supporters were Kaba
. After attending school in Ubangi-Shari, Patassé studied in an agricultural institute in Puy-de-Dôme
, France, where he received a Technical Baccalaureate which allowed him to enroll in the Superior Academy of Tropical Agriculture in Nogent-sur-Marne
, and then in the National Agronomical Institute in Paris. Specializing in zootechnology, he received a diploma from the Center for the Artificial Insemination of Domestic Animals in Rambouillet
, France. He finished his studies in Paris in 1959, a year before the independence of the Central African Republic.
. In December 1965, Dacko appointed him Director of Agriculture and Minister of Development. In 1966, Jean-Bédel Bokassa
took power in a coup d'état. Patassé was the "cousin" of President Bokassa's principal wife, Catherine Denguiade, and gained the confidence of the new president, serving in almost all the governments formed by Bokassa. After Bokassa's creation of the Council for the Central African Revolution (in imitation of Libya's government council), Patassé was named a member of the Council of the Revolution with the rank of Prime Minister in charge of Posts and Communications, Tourism, Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing, as well as Custodian of the Seats of State (4 September 1976 – 14 December 1976). During this period Patassé followed Bokassa in becoming a convert to Islam for a few months, and changed his name to Mustafa Patassé. After Bokassa became Emperor Bokassa I, Patassé was named Prime Minister and Head of the first Imperial Government. He remained in this position for 2 1/2 years, when a public announcement was made that Patassé had stepped down from office due to health problems. Patassé then left for France, where he remained in exile until the overthrow of Bokassa in September 1979. Shortly before Bokassa's overthrow, Patassé announced his opposition to the Emperor and founded the Front de Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (FLPC; Front for the Liberation of the Central African People]).
Emperor Bokassa was overthrown and President David Dacko restored to power by the French in 1979. Dacko ordered Patassé to be put under house arrest. Patassé attempted to escape to the Republic of Chad
, but failed and was arrested again. He was later released due to alleged health problems.
overthrew Dacko in a bloodless coup and took power, after which he forbade political activity in the country. Patassé felt obliged to leave the Central African Republic to live in exile once again, but on 27 February 1982, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic and participated in an unsuccessful coup d'état against General Kolingba with the help of a few military officers such as General François Bozizé. Four days later, having failed to gain the support of the military forces, Patassé went in disguise to the French Embassy in order to seek refuge. After heated negotiations between President Kolingba and the French, Patassé was allowed to leave for exile in Togo. After remaining abroad for almost a decade, of which several years were spent in France, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic in 1992 to participate in presidential elections as head of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (MLPC). The donor community, with the fall of the Soviet Union, saw no need to prop up the Kolingba regime and so had pressed for change helping to organise elections with some help from the UN Electoral Assistance Unit and with logistical support from the French army.
, and took office on October 22, 1993. Largely thanks to the foreign pressure notably from the USA and technical support from the UN, for the first time the elections were fair and democratic. Patassé thus became the first president in the nation's history to gain power by such means. He had the support of most of his own sara-kaba people, the largest ethno-linguistic group in the Central African Republic, as well as the Souma people of his "hometown" of Paoua and the Kare people of his mother. Most of his supporters lived in the most populous northwestern savanna regions of the CAR, and thus came to be called "northerners", whereas all previous presidents were from either the forest or Ubangi river regions in the south, and so their supporters came to be called "southerners". As a populist, Patassé promoted himself as a candidate who represented a majority of the population against the privileges of southerners who held a disproportionate number of lucrative jobs in the public and parastatal sectors of the economy. As President, Patassé began to replace many "southerners" with "northerners" in these jobs which infuriated many Yakoma people in particular who had benefited from the patronage of former President Kolingba.
During Patassé's first six-year term in office (22 October 1993 – 1999), the economy appeared to improve a little as the flow of donor money started up again following the elections and the apparent legitimacy they brought. There were three consecutive mutinies in 1996–1997, during which destruction of buildings and property had an adverse impact on the economy. The first mutiny began in May 1996. Patassé's government successfully regained control with the help of François Bozizé and the French, but his obvious dependency on the French, against whom he had regularly railed, reduced his standing further. His subsequent use of Libyan troops as a body guard did nothing to help his reputation, either locally or with the donor community and the USA even closed their embassy temporarily. The last and most serious mutiny continued until early 1997, when a semblance of order was restored with the help of troops from Burkina Faso
, Chad
, Gabon
, Mali
, Senegal
, and Togo
. The Security Council of the United Nations
approved a mission for peace, MINURCA, in 1998. MINURCA was made up of 1,350 African soldiers. These mutinies greatly increased the tension between "northerners" and "southerners" in the CAR and thus polarized society to a greater extent than before.
In the presidential election of September 1999, Patassé won easily, defeating former presidents Kolingba and Dacko, winning in the first round with about 51.6% of the vote. Opposition leaders accused the elections of being rigged. During his second term, Patassé, whose rule had always been erratic and arbitrary, became increasingly unpopular. In 2000, he may have had his former prime-minister Jean-Luc Mandaba
and his son poisoned on suspicion of planning a coup. There were failed coup attempts against him in 2001 and 2002, which he suspected Andre Kolingba and/or General François Bozizé were involved in, but when Patassé attempted to have Bozizé arrested, the general left the country for Chad with military forces which were loyal to him.
in 2003, and in his absence Bozizé seized Bangui
on March 15. Although this takeover was internationally condemned, no attempt was made to depose the new leader. Patassé then went into exile in Togo.
Although nominated as the MLPC's presidential candidate in November 2004, on December 30, 2004 Patassé was barred from running in the 2005 presidential election due to what the Constitutional Court considered problems with his birth certificate and land title. He was one of seven candidates barred, while five, including Bozizé, were permitted to stand. After an agreement signed in Libreville
, Gabon
on January 22, 2005, all barred presidential candidates were permitted to stand in the March 13 election except for Patassé, on the grounds that he was the subject of judicial proceedings. The MLPC instead backed his last prime minister, Martin Ziguélé
, for president.
Patassé was accused of stealing 70 billion Central African francs
from the country's treasury. He denied this and in an interview with Agence France-Presse
on December 21, 2004, he stated that he had no idea where he could have found so much money to steal in a country with a budget of only 90–100 billion francs. He was also accused of war crimes in connection with the violence that followed a failed 2002 coup attempt, in which rebels from the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo
came to Patassé's assistance, but were accused of committing many atrocities in the process. Patassé, the Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba
and three others were charged in September 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4908938.stm However, the government of the Central African Republic was unable to arrest them, so the courts referred the matter in April 2006 to the International Criminal Court
.
In March 2006, the Central African government accused Patassé of recruiting rebels and foreign mercenaries, establishing a training camp for them on the Sudanese border, and planning to destabilize the country. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52162&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes http://www.afriquecentrale.info/fr/news/news.asp?rubID=1&srubID=4&themeID=1&newsID=3943
At an extraordinary congress of the MLPC in June 2006, Patassé was suspended from the party for one year, while Ziguélé was elected as President of the MPLC. http://www.webzinemaker.com/admi/m7/page.php3?num_web=41362&rubr=2&id=304148 In August 2006 a court in the Central African Republic sentenced Patassé in absentia to 20 years of hard labor after a trial over the financial misconduct charges. http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_jeune_afrique.asp?art_cle=LIN03096langeuhcdeg0 At the MLPC's third ordinary congress in June 2007, Patassé was suspended from the party for three years, until the next party congress, with the threat of being expelled from the party altogether if he speaks on its behalf without approval while he is suspended. http://www.acap-cf.info/index.php?action=article&numero=598
Patassé said in June 2009 that he would be leaving his Togolese exile and returning to Bangui in preparation for the 2010 presidential election
, in which he planned to stand as a candidate. Although Ziguélé had taken over the MPLC, Patassé declared that he would convene a party congress upon his return. He eventually returned to Bangui on October 30, 2009, amidst a "discreet atmosphere". He subsequently met with Bozizé on November 9. Following the meeting, Patassé thanked Bozizé in a statement and said that they had discussed the Central African Republic's problems "in a brotherly atmosphere". He also reiterated his intention to stand as a presidential candidate in 2010.
Patassé placed second in the January 2011 presidential election, far behind Bozizé, although ill-health had impeded his campaigning. He suffered from diabetes and was prevented from leaving the country for treatment in Equatorial Guinea in March 2011. He was eventually allowed to travel, but was hospitalised at Douala
in Cameroon
en route to Malabo
, and died there on April 5, 2011. There were calls for a state funeral.
on December 3, 2007 at the age of 52. http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?art_cle=XIN80028lpousidemas0
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It borders Chad in the north, Sudan in the north east, South Sudan in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo in the south, and Cameroon in the west. The CAR covers a land area of about ,...
from 1993 until 2003, when he was deposed
Deposition (politics)
Deposition by political means concerns the removal of a politician or monarch. It may be done by coup, impeachment, invasion or forced abdication...
by the rebel leader François Bozizé
François Bozizé
François Bozizé Yangouvonda is the President of the Central African Republic. He came to power in March 2003 after leading a rebellion against President Ange-Félix Patassé and ushered in a transitional period of government...
. Patassé was the first president in the CAR's history (since 1960) to be chosen in what was generally regarded as a fairly democratic election (1993) in that it was brought about by donor pressure on the Kolingba regime and assisted by the UN Electoral Assistance Unit. He was chosen a second time in a fair election (1999) as well. However, during his first term in office (1993–1999), three military mutinies in 1996–1997 led to increasing conflict between so-called "northerners" (like Patassé) and "southerners" (like his predecessor President André Kolingba
André Kolingba
André-Dieudonné Kolingba was the fourth president of the Central African Republic , from 1 September 1981 until 1 October 1993. He took power from President David Dacko in a bloodless coup d'état in 1981 and lost power to Ange-Félix Patassé in a democratic election held in 1993...
). Expatriate mediators and peacekeeping troops were brought in to negotiate peace accords between Patassé and the mutineers and to maintain law and order. During his second term as president, Patassé increasingly lost the support of many of his long-time allies as well as the French, who had intervened to support him during his first term in office. Patassé was ousted in March 2003 and went into exile in Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
.
Background
Patassé was born in PaouaPaoua
Paoua is a town located in the Central African Republic prefecture of Ouham-Pendé. Paoua and its surrounding territories have become something of a ghost town after rebel and government soldier attacks in 2006 and 2007, with much of the population fleeing into the bush or into refugee camps. The...
, the capital of the northwestern province of Ouham Pendé in the colony of Ubangi-Shari in French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa or the AEF was the federation of French colonial possessions in Middle Africa, extending northwards from the Congo River to the Sahara Desert.-History:...
, and he belonged to the Sara-Kaba ethnic group which predominates in the region around Paoua. Patassé's father, Paul Ngakoutou, who had served in the Free French military forces during the Second World War and afterwards worked for the colonial administration in the Province of Ouham-Pendé, was a member of the Sara-kaba people and was raised in a small village to the northeast of Boguila. Patassé's mother, Véronique Goumba, belonged to the Kare
Kare
Kare is a village in the municipality of Žitorađa, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the village has a population of 54 people....
ethnic group of northwestern Ubangi-Shari. As Patassé spent much of his youth in Paoua he was associated with the Ouham-Pendé
Ouham-Pendé
Ouham-Pendé is one of the 14 prefectures of the Central African Republic. Its capital is Bozoum. The region contains several ghost towns such as Goroumo, Beogombo Deux and Paoua due to government forces ransacking them and armed bandits killing all the male inhabitants over the years from 2005 to...
province and many of his most loyal political supporters were Kaba
Kaba
Kaba may refer to:* Ka'ba , the holiest place in Islam, a large cube building inside the al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca* Kaba, Hungary, a town in Hajdú-Bihar County, Hungary, which had a rare carbonaceous chondrite meteorite fall in 1857...
. After attending school in Ubangi-Shari, Patassé studied in an agricultural institute in Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme is a department in the centre of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.Inhabitants were called Puydedomois until December 2005...
, France, where he received a Technical Baccalaureate which allowed him to enroll in the Superior Academy of Tropical Agriculture in Nogent-sur-Marne
Nogent-sur-Marne
Nogent-sur-Marne is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Nogent-sur-Marne is a sous-préfecture of the Val-de-Marne département, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Nogent-sur-Marne.-History:...
, and then in the National Agronomical Institute in Paris. Specializing in zootechnology, he received a diploma from the Center for the Artificial Insemination of Domestic Animals in Rambouillet
Rambouillet
Rambouillet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.It is located in the suburbs of Paris southwest from the center...
, France. He finished his studies in Paris in 1959, a year before the independence of the Central African Republic.
1960s–1970s: Rise to power
Patassé joined the Central African civil service in 1959, shortly before independence. He became an agricultural engineer and agricultural inspector in the Ministry of Agriculture in July 1963, under President David DackoDavid Dacko
David Dacko was the first President of the Central African Republic , from August 14, 1960 to January 1, 1966, and the third president of the CAR from September 21, 1979 to September 1, 1981...
. In December 1965, Dacko appointed him Director of Agriculture and Minister of Development. In 1966, Jean-Bédel Bokassa
Jean-Bédel Bokassa
Jean-Bédel Bokassa , a military officer, was the head of state of the Central African Republic and its successor state, the Central African Empire, from his coup d'état on 1 January 1966 until 20 September 1979...
took power in a coup d'état. Patassé was the "cousin" of President Bokassa's principal wife, Catherine Denguiade, and gained the confidence of the new president, serving in almost all the governments formed by Bokassa. After Bokassa's creation of the Council for the Central African Revolution (in imitation of Libya's government council), Patassé was named a member of the Council of the Revolution with the rank of Prime Minister in charge of Posts and Communications, Tourism, Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing, as well as Custodian of the Seats of State (4 September 1976 – 14 December 1976). During this period Patassé followed Bokassa in becoming a convert to Islam for a few months, and changed his name to Mustafa Patassé. After Bokassa became Emperor Bokassa I, Patassé was named Prime Minister and Head of the first Imperial Government. He remained in this position for 2 1/2 years, when a public announcement was made that Patassé had stepped down from office due to health problems. Patassé then left for France, where he remained in exile until the overthrow of Bokassa in September 1979. Shortly before Bokassa's overthrow, Patassé announced his opposition to the Emperor and founded the Front de Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (FLPC; Front for the Liberation of the Central African People]).
Emperor Bokassa was overthrown and President David Dacko restored to power by the French in 1979. Dacko ordered Patassé to be put under house arrest. Patassé attempted to escape to the Republic of Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
, but failed and was arrested again. He was later released due to alleged health problems.
Ministerial roles under Bokassa
- Minister of Development (1 January 1966 – 5 April 1968)
- Minister of Transport and Energy (5 April 1968 – 17 September 1969)
- Minister of State for Development, Tourism, Transport and Energy (17 September 1969 – 4 February 1970)
- Minister of State for Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Waters, Forests, Hunting, Tourism and Transport (4 February 1970 – 25 June 1970)
- Minister of State for Development (25 June 1970 – 19 August 1970)
- Minister of State for Transport and Commerce (19 August 1970 – 25 November 1970)
- Minister of State for the Organization of Transport by Roads, Rivers and Air (25 November 1970 – 19 October 1971)
- Minister of State for Civil Aviation (19 October 1971 – 13 May 1972)
- Minister of State for delegated by the President of the Republic for Rural Development (13 May 1972 – 20 March 1973)
- Minister of State for Public Health and Social Affairs (20 March 1973 – 16 October 1973)
- Minister of State delegated by the President of the Republic for Missions (16 October 1973 – 1 February 1974)
- Minister of State for Tourism, Waters, Forests, Hunting and Fishing (15 June 1974 – 4 April 1976)
- Minister of State serving as Agricultural Councilor for the Head of State (10 April 1976 – 24 May 1976)
- Minister of State for Tourism, Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing (24 May 1976 – 4 September 1976)
1980s: Return to politics and further exile
Patassé returned to the CAR to present himself as a candidate for the presidential election of 15 March 1981, after which it was announced that Patassé gained 38% of the votes and thus came in second, after President Dacko. Patassé denounced the election results as rigged, which they clearly were. Several months later, on 1 September 1981, General André KolingbaAndré Kolingba
André-Dieudonné Kolingba was the fourth president of the Central African Republic , from 1 September 1981 until 1 October 1993. He took power from President David Dacko in a bloodless coup d'état in 1981 and lost power to Ange-Félix Patassé in a democratic election held in 1993...
overthrew Dacko in a bloodless coup and took power, after which he forbade political activity in the country. Patassé felt obliged to leave the Central African Republic to live in exile once again, but on 27 February 1982, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic and participated in an unsuccessful coup d'état against General Kolingba with the help of a few military officers such as General François Bozizé. Four days later, having failed to gain the support of the military forces, Patassé went in disguise to the French Embassy in order to seek refuge. After heated negotiations between President Kolingba and the French, Patassé was allowed to leave for exile in Togo. After remaining abroad for almost a decade, of which several years were spent in France, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic in 1992 to participate in presidential elections as head of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (MLPC). The donor community, with the fall of the Soviet Union, saw no need to prop up the Kolingba regime and so had pressed for change helping to organise elections with some help from the UN Electoral Assistance Unit and with logistical support from the French army.
1990s: Return to power
After the Kolingba regime sabotaged a first set of elections in 1992, which Patassé would have probably won, a second set of elections was held and on the second round on 19 September 1993, he came in first, defeating Kolingba, David Dacko and Abel GoumbaAbel Goumba
Abel Nguéndé Goumba was a Central African political figure...
, and took office on October 22, 1993. Largely thanks to the foreign pressure notably from the USA and technical support from the UN, for the first time the elections were fair and democratic. Patassé thus became the first president in the nation's history to gain power by such means. He had the support of most of his own sara-kaba people, the largest ethno-linguistic group in the Central African Republic, as well as the Souma people of his "hometown" of Paoua and the Kare people of his mother. Most of his supporters lived in the most populous northwestern savanna regions of the CAR, and thus came to be called "northerners", whereas all previous presidents were from either the forest or Ubangi river regions in the south, and so their supporters came to be called "southerners". As a populist, Patassé promoted himself as a candidate who represented a majority of the population against the privileges of southerners who held a disproportionate number of lucrative jobs in the public and parastatal sectors of the economy. As President, Patassé began to replace many "southerners" with "northerners" in these jobs which infuriated many Yakoma people in particular who had benefited from the patronage of former President Kolingba.
During Patassé's first six-year term in office (22 October 1993 – 1999), the economy appeared to improve a little as the flow of donor money started up again following the elections and the apparent legitimacy they brought. There were three consecutive mutinies in 1996–1997, during which destruction of buildings and property had an adverse impact on the economy. The first mutiny began in May 1996. Patassé's government successfully regained control with the help of François Bozizé and the French, but his obvious dependency on the French, against whom he had regularly railed, reduced his standing further. His subsequent use of Libyan troops as a body guard did nothing to help his reputation, either locally or with the donor community and the USA even closed their embassy temporarily. The last and most serious mutiny continued until early 1997, when a semblance of order was restored with the help of troops from Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...
, Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
, Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
, Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
, and Togo
Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...
. The Security Council of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
approved a mission for peace, MINURCA, in 1998. MINURCA was made up of 1,350 African soldiers. These mutinies greatly increased the tension between "northerners" and "southerners" in the CAR and thus polarized society to a greater extent than before.
In the presidential election of September 1999, Patassé won easily, defeating former presidents Kolingba and Dacko, winning in the first round with about 51.6% of the vote. Opposition leaders accused the elections of being rigged. During his second term, Patassé, whose rule had always been erratic and arbitrary, became increasingly unpopular. In 2000, he may have had his former prime-minister Jean-Luc Mandaba
Jean-Luc Mandaba
Jean-Luc Mandaba was Prime Minister of the Central African Republic from 25 October 1993 to 12 April 1995 under president Ange-Félix Patassé....
and his son poisoned on suspicion of planning a coup. There were failed coup attempts against him in 2001 and 2002, which he suspected Andre Kolingba and/or General François Bozizé were involved in, but when Patassé attempted to have Bozizé arrested, the general left the country for Chad with military forces which were loyal to him.
2003–2008: Ouster and criminal charges
Patassé left the country for a conference in NigerNiger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
in 2003, and in his absence Bozizé seized Bangui
Bangui
-Law and government:Bangui is an autonomous commune of the Central African Republic. With an area of 67 km², it is by far the smallest high-level administrative division of the CAR in area but the highest in population...
on March 15. Although this takeover was internationally condemned, no attempt was made to depose the new leader. Patassé then went into exile in Togo.
Although nominated as the MLPC's presidential candidate in November 2004, on December 30, 2004 Patassé was barred from running in the 2005 presidential election due to what the Constitutional Court considered problems with his birth certificate and land title. He was one of seven candidates barred, while five, including Bozizé, were permitted to stand. After an agreement signed in Libreville
Libreville
Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon, in west central Africa. The city is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea, and a trade center for a timber region. As of 2005, it has a population of 578,156.- History :...
, Gabon
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
on January 22, 2005, all barred presidential candidates were permitted to stand in the March 13 election except for Patassé, on the grounds that he was the subject of judicial proceedings. The MLPC instead backed his last prime minister, Martin Ziguélé
Martin Ziguélé
Martin Ziguélé is a Central African politician who was Prime Minister of the Central African Republic from 2001 to 2003...
, for president.
Patassé was accused of stealing 70 billion Central African francs
CFA franc
The CFA franc is the name of two currencies used in Africa which are guaranteed by the French treasury. The two CFA franc currencies are the West African CFA franc and the Central African CFA franc...
from the country's treasury. He denied this and in an interview with Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
on December 21, 2004, he stated that he had no idea where he could have found so much money to steal in a country with a budget of only 90–100 billion francs. He was also accused of war crimes in connection with the violence that followed a failed 2002 coup attempt, in which rebels from the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...
came to Patassé's assistance, but were accused of committing many atrocities in the process. Patassé, the Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba
Jean-Pierre Bemba
Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo is a politician in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was one of four vice-presidents in the transitional government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 17 July 2003 to December 2006. Bemba also leads the Movement for the Liberation of Congo , a rebel group...
and three others were charged in September 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4908938.stm However, the government of the Central African Republic was unable to arrest them, so the courts referred the matter in April 2006 to the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
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In March 2006, the Central African government accused Patassé of recruiting rebels and foreign mercenaries, establishing a training camp for them on the Sudanese border, and planning to destabilize the country. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=52162&SelectRegion=Great_Lakes http://www.afriquecentrale.info/fr/news/news.asp?rubID=1&srubID=4&themeID=1&newsID=3943
At an extraordinary congress of the MLPC in June 2006, Patassé was suspended from the party for one year, while Ziguélé was elected as President of the MPLC. http://www.webzinemaker.com/admi/m7/page.php3?num_web=41362&rubr=2&id=304148 In August 2006 a court in the Central African Republic sentenced Patassé in absentia to 20 years of hard labor after a trial over the financial misconduct charges. http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_jeune_afrique.asp?art_cle=LIN03096langeuhcdeg0 At the MLPC's third ordinary congress in June 2007, Patassé was suspended from the party for three years, until the next party congress, with the threat of being expelled from the party altogether if he speaks on its behalf without approval while he is suspended. http://www.acap-cf.info/index.php?action=article&numero=598
2008–2011: Return to Bangui, last presidential campaign, and death
On December 7, 2008, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic for the first time since his ouster in order to participate in a national dialogue, with the government's permission. Arriving at the airport in Bangui, he kissed the ground and said that he had "not come to judge but to find grounds for entente and to tackle the problems of the Central African Republic". At the dialogue, Patassé said that the political situation should be resolved not through removing Bozizé from office, but through "democratic, transparent and fair elections in 2010".Patassé said in June 2009 that he would be leaving his Togolese exile and returning to Bangui in preparation for the 2010 presidential election
Central African Republic presidential election, 2010
A presidential and parliamentary election was held in the Central African Republic on 23 January 2011 after having been postponed numerous times. President François Bozizé was re-elected to a second term...
, in which he planned to stand as a candidate. Although Ziguélé had taken over the MPLC, Patassé declared that he would convene a party congress upon his return. He eventually returned to Bangui on October 30, 2009, amidst a "discreet atmosphere". He subsequently met with Bozizé on November 9. Following the meeting, Patassé thanked Bozizé in a statement and said that they had discussed the Central African Republic's problems "in a brotherly atmosphere". He also reiterated his intention to stand as a presidential candidate in 2010.
Patassé placed second in the January 2011 presidential election, far behind Bozizé, although ill-health had impeded his campaigning. He suffered from diabetes and was prevented from leaving the country for treatment in Equatorial Guinea in March 2011. He was eventually allowed to travel, but was hospitalised at Douala
Douala
Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Province. Home to Cameroon's largest port and its major international airport, Douala International Airport, it is the commercial capital of the country...
in Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
en route to Malabo
Malabo
Malabo is the capital of Equatorial Guinea, located on the northern coast of Bioko Island on the rim of a sunken volcano....
, and died there on April 5, 2011. There were calls for a state funeral.
Personal life
While in exile in Togo from 1982 to 1992, Patassé separated from his first wife, Lucienne. He then married a Togolese woman, Angèle, and during his subsequent exile in Togo, beginning in 2003, he lived with her there. She died in LoméLomé
Lomé, with an estimated population of 737,751, is the capital and largest city of Togo. Located on the Gulf of Guinea, Lomé is the country's administrative and industrial center and its chief port. The city exports coffee, cocoa, copra, and palm kernels...
on December 3, 2007 at the age of 52. http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?art_cle=XIN80028lpousidemas0