World Constitution and Parliament Association
Institute On World Problems
313 Seventh Ave., Radford VA 24141, USA
Dr. Glen T. Martin, Secretary-General, gmartin@radford.edu
Dr. Eugenia Almand, Deputy Secretary General, govt_rules@yahoo.com
Report from the Home Office
October 2007
PART ONE: THE PAST YEAR
This year has been an exciting one as well as a tragic one for WCPA/IOWP. We have accomplished much in spite of the fact that our beloved President, Dr. Terence P. Amerasinghe, passed away in the spring of the year at age 90. During the past two years, Dr. Amerasinghe appeared to know that he would not be with us much longer and took steps to prepare Dr. Martin and others to carry on with the work of our organizations after his departure. He told Dr. Martin “I don’t want this work to end after I am gone.”
It was thus in mourning and loving memory of Dr. Amerasinghe that we carried on with plans for an IOWP seminar in his home town of Colombo, Sri Lanka in June of this year. A tribute to Dr. Amerasinghe can be found on Glen Martin’s website at www.radford.edu/~gmartin. A number of us had just been together with Dr. Amerasinghe in an IOWP Seminar at the New Humanity Center in Kalamata Greece. That meeting was a very happy occasion and time of celebration as IOWP awarded Eugenia Almand the degree of Juris Doctor for her excellent work over many years in developing the infrastructure and conceptual framework for emerging world law under the Earth Constitution (see photo)
Dr. Amerasinghe (left) and Dr. Martin award the Juris Doctor degree to Eugenia Almand
In June 2007, the Institute On World Problems held another Seminar on World Problems in Colombo, Sri Lanka and the World Constitution and Parliament Association organized the 10th Session of the Provisional World Parliament in Kara, Togo.
The seminar on June 7-8, 2007, was quite successful and featured a guest lecture by Justice .C. G. Weeramantry, former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice in the Hague (see photo). The seminar was sponsored and organized by Mr. Nalin Jayasuriya, (who runs an international consulting business from his home-base in Colombo). Mr. Jayasuriya, who is also nephew to Dr. Amerasinghe, effectively used the opportunity to have meetings with Sarwar Alam (WCPA Youth Coordinator), Mr. Zaroon (Dr. Amerasinghe’s longtime associate in Sri Lanka), Dr. Martin and others concerning the future of our work.
Judge C. G. Weeramantry, former Vice-President of the ICJ in the Hague, lectures to the IOWP Seminar in Colombo
The vibrant Ninth Session of the Provisional World Parliament in Tripoli, Libya in April 2006 hosted and organized by Dr. Ramadan Breki of Libya, WCPA Vice-President (see photo). A number of excellent provisional World Legislative Acts (WLAs) were passed in Libya that can be found on Glen Martin’s website. Yet WCPA was determined to hold another session of the Parliament in Africa to give our many African supporters another opportunity to participate in our work of transforming our planetary home into one in which every person on Earth can live with freedom, peace, justice, and prosperity.
Some of the international delegates from the 9th Session of the Provisional World Parliament in Tripoli
On this vision, Dr. Dominique Balouki of Togo organized the Tenth Session of the Provisional World Parliament to meet in Kara, Togo, June 21-25, 2007. Several delegates came who had participated in the Ninth Session: Dr. Breki and two of our fine colleagues that we have known from Libya flew into Lome, Togo and then traveled north to join the parliament in Kara. Dr. Bob Blain flew into Lome from North America and arrived by bus in Kara. Mr. Mondjo Boussiengui traveled from Gabon. In all the Parliament had some 84 delegates from Togo and surrounding African countries (see photo). It was held at the elegant “Congress of the Peoples,” a palace owned by the government of Togo in the city of Kara.
At the front table of the Parliament in Togo, Dr. Balouki addresses the delegates
Four excellent World Legislative Acts were passed as well as a number of resolutions and modifications of earlier legislation. Of particular note was WLA #42 that provides a Guaranteed Annual Income for all adults over age 18 who are members of the Earth Federation, to begin during the first operative stage of World Government under the Earth Constitution. Also of note was the “Resolution on the Trial of War Criminals and Perpetrators of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity.” This resolution was drafted and submitted by the United Democratic Social Forum of Bangladesh and mentioned in particular the horrible crimes of the Pakistan military against the people of Bangladesh in 1971 that have yet to be addressed in a court of justice.
Due to the hard work of Dr. Dominique Balouki in Togo, the IOWP has received two grants of land to develop Permaculture Projects in two cities: Sokode and Kara (see photo). As our readers know, IOWP has held several Seminars on World Problems in Togo over the past several years. Both last June and the previous June in Togo, Glen Martin received hundreds of names of people from these cities interested in participating in the development of these Permaculture Projects. We have the land and the person power, and we are working on the third essential: development funding.
Dr. Balouki surveys the 2.5 hectares of land outside Kara soon to be an IOWP Permaculture Project
Our plan this year is to apply for grant funding to begin these projects which will serve as a model and as educational centers for sustainable development and self-sufficiency within both Togo and Africa. Once the projects are underway, these centers can also serve an educational function for Africa with respect to the need for a transformed economic and political structure for the world under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. Our wonderful recent news is that Ms. Shari Krishnaratne, granddaughter of Dr. Amerasinghe and graduate student at Boston University in Massachusetts, has experience in grant-writing and has volunteered to lead this project.
It has been a very productive year for our work for a transformed world order under the Earth Constitution. We have big plans for the coming year as well, and very soon we will be sending you PART TWO of this report: “THE COMING YEAR.” We depend on our membership in local chapters in many countries to keep the work developing in these countries. We need to keep the names of WCPA and the Provisional World Parliament out there as much as possible and in as many ways as possible. We very much appreciate your hard work in your many locations around the world. At some point there will be a general awakening of humankind and the leaders of the world will be working hard to adopt the Earth Constitution. Our job is to create the foundation for that moment of transition.
Part Two of this report (to be posted soon) will describe WCPA-IOWP plans for the coming year. We are moving into a very exciting future: building the foundations for a truly new world.