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About IRC >>
Recent Progress In IRC's Work In CLM Countries
Since the middle and late 1990s IRC has developed a great
deal of efforts in the direction of Cambodia , Laos and Myanmar
. IRC has “engaged” Myanmar since 1994 when it first proposed
a project called “Interaction For Progress: Myanmar and ASEAN”.
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This project was a continuation of the project
IRC had initiated in Vietnam in 1990. The first conference,
held in August 1991 in Hanoi with the participation of decision-makers
from Vietnam and ASEAN, produced a decisive impact on the
new thinking of the party leadership. At the request of the
Vietnamese leadership the symposium series was institutionalized
as an annual event. Three further meetings were held in Kuala
Lumpur , Bangkok and Manila , and an ASEAN-Vietnam Study Group
was organized as part of the series, which culminated in 1994.
The Vietnamese indeed recognized that this ASEAN-Vietnam engagement
did contribute to the formulation of Vietnam 's policy towards
ASEAN. The results of this series are available in the four
volumes of the work Southeast Asian Beyond 2000.
The critical issue today for these countries and Myanmar
in particular is how to develop, modernize and liberalize
the country's economic and political system and to make them
relevant and responsive without producing the kind of upheaval
that were witnessed in the former socialist regimes of Eastern
and Central Europe or to neighboring countries such as Indonesia.
Myanmar , for instance, can very well be a new test case for
a new approach for peaceful reconstruction and transition
against the experiences of China and Vietnam on one hand and
the more painful experiences of Indonesia on the other.
At a time when the trends for dialogue and reconciliation
remain strong there is an urgent need to promote and support
these cooperative trends of interaction between and among
domestic forces on one hand, and between Myanmar and Europe
and the USA on the other hand. The primary objective is to
contribute to Myanmar 's reintegration into its natural global
environment. |
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