No Subject

Comment on Troy Davis' remarks.

First by way of background, our organization, the Association to Unite the
Democracies, promotes global peace through supporting regional federations.
The federations that are in existence or newly forming are initially
economic in nature which ensures stability but which should be backed up
with a solid constitution where sovereignty in part is retained by the
people through referendum government.

In this regard we had an opportunity to recently become involved in the
democracy process in Africa. Due to a book we wrote, "Common Sense in the
Twenty-first Century", which was widely circulated (including the U.N.) we
received an invitation to talk with the ambassador of Uganda.

In preparing ourselves for this visit we spent considerable time doing
research on Africa. One of our best sources was Robert Maddex's (a member of
AUD) book "Constitutions of the World". We were really surprised with the
sophistication of Africa's constitutions and with the fact that
approximately one half of the countries used referendum as a means of
changing their constitutions. (I wish we had that ability in the U.S.)

During our very cordial visit with the Ambassador of Uganda we were all
astounded at the transformation that country has gone through. Our last
recall of this country was Adi Amin and his predecessor, Obota? (Sp). One of
our members who accompanied us was a retired officer of the state department
with extensive experience in Africa and he was also amazed by the rapid
change.

There are now about 5 economic alliances in Africa, one even has a common
currency. Uganda is part of a newly formed East African Alliance. We believe
that with the EU's attention now on Eastern Europe as a much needed source
for a labor pool, Africa is receiving less and less attention. This is
reinforcing their need for greater cooperation among themselves. This in
turn we believe will result in increased stability to their continent.

In Uganda the term referendum (which I believe they refer to as governance)
will be tested this summer when the entire nation will discuss at local
levels (town meetings?) the idea of political parties and then vote on how
to incorporate this consept into their constitution. (It is interesting that
political parties are not discussed in our U.S. Constitution).

Twenty years ago the literature suggested that democracy would not work in
Africa because of tribalism. But in fact it may be that the purest form of
democracy may lie in tribalism. Their tribal meetings, which you could call
town meetings, are referred to as "headhanging". It is also interesting that
they do not have secret ballots. They show their vote by lining up behind
the individual who's position they support.

To conclude, we have been tentatively invited to conduct a seminar in Uganda
on constitutional construction and global program we have developed
following our successful constitutional convention in The Hague in July of
1998. If successful, this could be a model they could adopt prior to their
national referendum conference later in the summer.

We will keep you informed on how it is going,

Warm regards,

Bob Frantz
Vice President
AUD