Central African Republic, 1969 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 9 April 1969 Lieutenant Colonel Alexandre Banza, once the co-author of Jean-Bedel Bokassa's 1966 coup and his minister of state and finance in the Central African Republic, attempted to overthrow Bokassa after being progressively demoted and sidelined. Banza, who had grown openly critical of Bokassa's extravagance and mismanagement, revealed his plan to Lieutenant Jean-Claude Mandaba, the commander of Camp Kassai, seeking his support, but Mandaba stayed loyal to Bokassa and tipped him off. When Banza arrived at Camp Kassai to launch the coup, he was ambushed, his arms broken, and he was thrown into the trunk of a car and taken to Bokassa, who beat him savagely.
On 12 April Banza was brought before a military tribunal that sentenced him to death, and he was executed by firing squad and buried in an unmarked grave. The episode marked Bokassa's turn to ever more arbitrary and brutal personal rule.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
48204101969
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Jean-Bedel Bokassa survived and had Banza executed, consolidating his personal dictatorship.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →