Since Mali, a former French colony, follows French judicial customs, and since the French language is well suited to abstraction, the arguments are not always strictly empirical. Allegations of conspiracy are challenged with demands for proof, but the most eloquent testimony comes in the patient, angry speeches of ordinary Africans who step forward to lament what they see as the cruel consequences of debt servicing and privatization: emigration, loss of control over infrastructure and natural resources, rampant political corruption and a precipitously declining standard of living.
