President Moussa Traore and his wife Madame Traore, but of this, more later. The National Director of Prisons, Mr. Sidibe drove us to this meeting, and I am grateful to him. Madame Barbara Vital-Durand of PRI acted as interpreter for me. She also handled travel, accommodation and other administrative matters while we were in Mali. These had been initiated from the Paris Office of PRI. This office was also instrumental in securing permission for the return visit. For all these, I am much obliged to PRI. After careful consideration of comments on the report of the earlier visit, I have decided to retain its basic structure, at the risk of some monotony. Considering each prison separately has the advantage of the problems of each being addressed by easily identifiable officials. This advantage will be lost when the observations and comments on the prisons visited are bunched up. The same applies to the lessons which can be learnt from particular prisons. To the many who have commented on my work during and outside the Sessions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, I express my appreciation. Except the context indicates otherwise accounts of meetings are faithful to statements and views of officials. My findings, comments and recommendations are generally reserved to the end of the report. Treserve the final expression of appreciation and gratitude to the government lof Norway, which through the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) financially underwrote every aspect of this visit. INTRODUCTION visited prisons 2 in Mali, with the consent of her government, from 120 - 30 August 1997. That visit took me to prisons and detention centres in Bamako, Tombouctou, Goundam, Mopti, Baguineda, and Kati. A report on the visit including the comments of the government of Mali was published in 1998, and distributed widely. Recommendations form an important part of the report. It is, therefore, to the credit of the government of Mali (hereafter referred to as 'the government') that its comments incorporated its implementation of some of the recommendations in the report. Nevertheless the impact of the work of a Special Rapporteur is likely to be greater if he or she is able to return to the site of an earlier visit to find out what changes, if any, have taken place between the two visits. The inclusion of new places, in my case prisons, will reveal the extent of any beneficial impact of the earlier visit on the subject of inquiry. These thoughts and beliefs guided my return visit to Mali. In the event, I settled on prisons and detention centres in Bamako, Kati, Bolle, Koulikoro, Mopti and Kayes. Valuable as a return visit may be, it was even delightful to have the government throw open the doors of its prisons to me on two occasions within fifteen months. Far from it being a discouragement, a postponement of the visit for a few months heightened my interest, and indicated the seriousness with which the government took prison reforms. 2. Whenever the context demands it 'Prisons' should be understood to include places of detention.