Friday, April 6, 2012

Amadou Sanogo

Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo (born 1972 or 1973) is a Malian military officer and the leader of the 2012 Malian coup d'état against President Amadou Toumani Toure. He proclaimed himself the leader of the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR).

Background
Sanogo has spent 22 years in the military. Before the coup, Sanogo had held a mid-level army position. A participant in the International Military Education and Training program, he received training "at training programmes in the United States, in Georgia and at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia", but his American instructors "never marked him out as future leadership material". He also studied English at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

Military rulership
His first actions as de facto head of state included suspending the constitution and activities of some organizations, as well as declaring a curfew and closing the borders. Though the rationale for the coup had been Amadou Toumani Toure's alleged mismanagement of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion, the Malian military lost control of the regional capitals of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu within ten days of Sanogo's assuming office, leading Reuters to describe the coup as "a spectacular own-goal". On 4 April, The New York Times reported that he was trying to deflect attention from the coup to the struggles in the north, telling a reporter, "We should forget a little the Committee, the Parliament, the Constitution — that can wait. The serious topic, it’s the north. That’s the most important."

From : www.wikipedia.org