Tiébilé Dramé

Tiébilé Dramé (9 June 1955 – 12 August 2025) was a Malian politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1992 and again from 2019 until the 2020 Malian coup d'état. Born in Nioro du Sahel, he became a student activist in Bamako against the regime of dictator Moussa Traoré and was elected secretary general of the National Union of Students and Pupils of Mali in 1978. He was arrested and imprisoned several times between 1977 and 1980, and went into exile in Europe in 1981. He earned a degree in African history at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and worked for Amnesty International in London as a researcher investigating human rights abuses in West Africa.

After Traoré's overthrow in the 1991 Malian coup d'état, Dramé returned from exile and served as Mali's foreign minister from 1991 to 1992 in the transitional government of President Amadou Toumani Touré. In 1992, he founded Le Républicain, a leading independent daily newspaper. In 1995, he founded the Party for National Rebirth, which he would lead until his death. Between 1996 and 1997, he served as Minister of Arid and Semi-Arid Zones, and in 1997 was elected to the National Assembly for his home...