Issa Lamine is a Nigerien politician. He led the Toubou-based Front Democratique Revolutionnaire, one of several rebel groups operating in the far north and east of Niger in the late 1990s. Lamine entered government as a representative of the eastern town of N'Gourti in 2000. As a member of the Democratic and Social Convention (CDS-Rahama), he was a Deputy in the National Assembly of Niger and then served in the government of Niger as Minister of Public Health from 2007 to 2009. He left the CDS-Rahama in 2009 and was elected to the National Assembly as an independent candidate. Rebel leader In the late 1990s Lamine was "Head of External Affairs", later overall leader, of the Toubou-based Front Democratique Revolutionnaire rebel movement active in the southern part of the Kaouar region. Political leader Following the 1999 coup and return to civilian rule, Lamine became political leader from his base in N'Gourti, and from 5 January 2000 served as Minister in a series of governments. He was named Nigerien Minister of Youth and Sport in the first government of the Nigerien Fifth Republic, keeping this portfolio through a change in personnel on 17 September 2001. Lamine served in this second government, also under MNSD-Nassara Prime Minister Hama Amadou, until 9 November 2002. Both these appointments were as an independent, represented officially as leader of the former rebel FDR. Lamine was elected to the National Assembly as a CDS candidate in the December 2004 parliamentary election, and during the parliamentary term that followed he served as Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Commission. Minister of Health Later, he was appointed to the government as Minister of Public Health on 9 June 2007. In July 2008, following international condemnation of malnutrition and famine in the Maradi Region, Minister of Health Issa Lamine had Doctors Without Borders (MSF-France) teams treating malnourished children ejected from the country, accusing the MSF of giving "false" malnutrition statistics exaggerating starvation to stimulate funding. Lamine opened a center for continuing education about the disease noma, which was funded by a non-governmental organization, in Niamey on 23 January 2009. On that occasion, he credited the non-governmental organizations Sentinelles, Campaner, and Hilfsaktion for their work combating the disease in different parts of Niger. 2009-2011 political crisis After the CDS chose to withdraw from the government to protest President Mamadou Tandja's plans for a constitutional referendum, Lamine and the other CDS ministers were