Rhissa Ag Boula

Rhissa Ag Boula (* 1957 in Tchirozérine ) is a Nigerien paramilitary leader and politician . From 1991 to 1995 he headed the Aïr and Azawad Liberation Front and was Niger's Minister of Tourism from 1997 to 2004 . Since 2016 he has been a minister at the presidential office.

Life

Rhissa Ag Boula comes from a low social class of the Tuareg faction Kel Tedélé. He first worked for the travel agency Tamzak Voyage in Arlit , which was founded in 1983 by the businessman Moutta Aboubacar from Iférouane . Soon afterwards he switched to Mano Dayak's travel agency Témet Voyages in Agadez as an accountant .

When a multi-party system was reintroduced in Niger after more than three decades , Ag Boula was one of the co-founders of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS-Amana) party in 1990 , of which he was a member of the executive office. In 1991 he became the founder and leader of the Aïr and Azawad Liberation Front (FLAA). The FLAA was the first of the paramilitary Tuareg organizations of the 1990s to express their demands for greater political participation of the Tuareg with kidnappings, murders and raids. The men in the closest circle around Rhissa Ag Boula were known to be experienced highwaymen. The first major attack by the FLAA was on the Aderbissinat military post on December 30, 1991. Ag Boula personally directed a devastating FLAA attack on the Iférouane oasis on March 15, 1992, in which two people were killed and another ten kidnapped. A major counter-offensive by Niger's armed forces in August 1992 forced the paramilitaries to withdraw briefly to Algeria . Several fighters, including Ag Boula, were temporarily arrested there for illegally possessing weapons. The various Tuareg paramilitaries organized themselves in the Coordination of Armed Resistance (CRA). After disagreements with its director, his former travel agency employer Mano Dayak, Rhissa Ag Boula founded the Organization of the Armed Resistance (ORA) in 1991 as the successor organization to the CRA. On April 24, 1995, he signed a comprehensive peace agreement for the ORA with the Nigerien government, which guaranteed the paramilitary fighters a general amnesty .

Under President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara , Rhissa Ag Boula was appointed Minister Deputy Minister for Tourism in the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Hassane Mayaki on December 1, 1997 . It was almost exclusively Tuareg who controlled tourism in the north of the country. With the transfer of the ministerial post to Ag Boula, the mandate was implicitly connected to prevent any new Tuareg uprisings in the Agadez region from emerging. As Minister of Tourism, he used Tuareg folklore to interest tourists from Europe in Niger. At the beginning of his term of office, the first Festival International de la Mode en Afrique was held in the dunes of Tiguidit . In the course of a government reshuffle on December 29, 1998, Ag Boula received a further department and became Minister for Tourism and Crafts. Under Daouda Malam Wanké , Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara's successor as head of state, he became Minister for Tourism and Crafts on April 15, 1999. He also retained this position in the government of Prime Minister Hama Amadou under President Mamadou Tandja , which was appointed on January 5, 2000 . Ag Boula's ministerial activity was unusually long for Nigerien standards under three different heads of state.

He resigned as minister on February 13, 2004 after he was accused of participating in the assassination of the president of the section of the ruling party MNSD-Nassara in Tchirozérine, which he denied. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested for incitement to murder and taken to Say Prison. His brother Mohamed Ag Boula then reorganized the FLAA paramilitary group. On August 10, 2004, the FLAA took several hostages in a robbery on a bus on the trunk road to Arlit. With the mediation of Libyan head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi , first the hostages and then Rhissa Ag Boula were released in March 2005. On July 15, 2005, the FLAA laid down its arms in a ceremony in Libya in front of Muammar al-Gaddafi. After his release, Rhissa Ag Boula fled to France , but in 2005 took over the party chairmanship of the UDPS-Amana, who had not been represented in parliament for several years.

When the Nigerien Movement for Justice (MNJ), a new paramilitary organization with activities against the government of President Mamadou Tandja, appeared in 2007 , Rhissa Ag Boula offered herself as a mediator. The government rejected his proposal. Ag Boula then founded the Front des Forces de Redressement (FFR), a small splinter group of the MNJ. The executive committee of the UDPS-Amana, which saw the democratic and constitutional orientation of the party at risk, deposed him as party chairman in 2008. A court in the capital Niamey sentenced him to death in absentia that same year . Libya brokered the peace treaty of 2009 between the MNJ and the Nigerien government, in which the FFR was also mentioned, despite its minor importance. The amnesty set out in the peace treaty only related to crimes that were committed in the course of paramilitary activities from 2007 to 2009, which is why Ag Boula initially stayed away from Niger.

After President Tandja was deposed in February 2010, Ag Boula returned to Niamey. He wanted to promote the integration of his former fighters into the Nigerien armed forces vis-à-vis the new rulers and bring himself back into play as the Tuareg representative. He was arrested, but released a few months later under pressure from Muammar al-Gaddafi, who used trumpet to arrest immigrants from Niger in Tripoli on the basis of trumped-up allegations. Ag Boula then fled to Libya. He supported al-Gaddafi in the Libyan civil war and in the international military operation in Libya . After the overthrow of al-Gaddafi in September 2011, the new Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou invited Ag Boula back to Niger and appointed him special adviser with the intention of sending a sign of reconciliation towards the former Tuareg paramilitaries. In the violent conflict in northern Mali that Tuareg groups began against the Mali government in 2012, Rhissa Ag Boula spoke out in favor of a nonviolent solution. President Issoufou brought Ag Boula back into government in 2016 as Minister at the Presidential Chancellery.

Alternative names

Alternative spellings of his name are Ghissa Ag Boula , Ghissa ag Boula , Ghissa Boula , Rhisa Ag Boula , Rhisa ag Boula , Rhisa Boula , Rhissa Agboula , Rhissa ag Boula , Rhissa Boula , Risa ag Boula , Risa Agboula , Risa Ag Bula , Risa ag Bula , Rissa Ag Boula , Rissa ag Boula , Rissa Ag Bula , Rissa ag Bula and Rissa Boula .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chékou Koré Lawel : Rébellion touareg au Niger: politique et approche juridique. (PDF) Thèse de doctorate. Université René Descartes - Paris V, 2012, pp. 109 and 318 , accessed on November 23, 2015 (French). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Marko Scholze: Modern nomads and hawkers: Tuareg and tourism in Niger . Lit, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-0716-0 , pp. 126 and 144 .
3. ^ ^{A b} Organization Record: Union for Democracy & Social Progress. In: AfDevInfo. June 20, 2008, archived from the original on May 21, 2012 ; accessed on November 23, 2015 . 
4. ↑ Emmanuel Grégoire: Niger Touaregs. Le destin d'un mythe . 2nd Edition. Karthala, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-8111-0352-1 , pp. 51-52 .
5. ↑ ^{a b} Chékou Koré Lawel: Rébellion touareg au Niger: politique et approche juridique. (PDF) Thèse de doctorate. Université René Descartes - Paris V, 2012, p. 85 , accessed on November 23, 2015 (French). 
6. ^ ^{A b} Jean-Dominique Geslin: Rhissa Ag Boula: la fin d'un baroudeur? In: Jeune Afrique. March 1, 2004, accessed November 23, 2015 (French). 
7. ^ André Salifou : La question touarègue au Niger . Karthala, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-86537-434-3 , pp. 125 .
8. ↑ Emmanuel Grégoire: Niger Touaregs. Le destin d'un mythe . 2nd Edition. Karthala, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-8111-0352-1 , pp. 59 .
9. ^ Accord établissant une paix définitive entre le Gouvernements de la République du Niger et l'Organisation de la Résistance Armée (ORA). (PDF) Fait à Ouagadougou, le 15 avril 1995. Accessed November 23, 2015 (French). 
10. ↑ ^{a b} Governments of the President Ibrahim Maïnassara Barré. Présidence de la République du Niger, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved November 23, 2015 (French). 
11. ↑ Yvan Guichaoua: Circumstantial Alliances and Loose Loyalities in rebellion Making: The Case of Tuareg insurgency in Northern Niger (2007-2009) . In: Yvan Guichaoua (Ed.): Understanding Collective Political Violence . Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills 2012, ISBN 978-0-230-28546-0 .
12. ^ Governments of the President Daouda Mallan Wanké. Présidence de la République du Niger, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved November 23, 2015 (French). 
13. ^ Governments 5ème République. Présidence de la République du Niger, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved November 23, 2015 (French). 
14. ↑ Chékou Koré Lawel: Rébellion touareg au Niger: approche juridique et politique. (PDF) Thèse de doctorate. Université René Descartes - Paris V, 2012, pp. 68–69 , accessed on November 23, 2015 (French). 
15. ↑ ^{a b c} Abdourahmane Idrissa, Samuel Decalo: Historical Dictionary of Niger . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-6094-0 , pp. 33 .
16. ^ Former Nigeria Rebel Leader Dismissed From His Party's Leadership. In: Net News Publisher. February 9, 2008; archived from the original on September 5, 2008 ; accessed on November 23, 2015 . 
17. ↑ Interview de M. Rhissa Boula, Conseiller spécial du président de la République “Il faut éviter que ce conflit malien ne se propage dans tout l'espace saharie”. In: Tamtam Info. June 15, 2012, accessed November 23, 2015 (French). 
18. ^ Niger: le nouveau gouvernement passe de 38 à 40 ministres. (No longer available online.) In: Africatime.com. April 13, 2016, archived from the original on April 16, 2016 ; accessed on April 16, 2016 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.