THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

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CONTENTS PROLOGUE.........“THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY PICNIC” I....................... “A WATERSHED EVENT IN THAI HISTORY” II..…..................................“LOVE <strong>OF</strong> FLYING AND WOMEN” III....................... “FEAR AND LOATHING FOR THE QUEEN” NOTES There are several ways to transliterate Thai into English, and there is little agreement even on basic ground rules. The U.S. cables often use eccentric spelling for Thai names, and often use several different spellings, sometimes even within a single cable. Quotes from the cables and other sources are reproduced verbatim, even if this means conflicting spellings in the text of the article. I have followed three rules in my redaction policy for this story: 1. If the source of information is a player in the game, their identity is not redacted. 2. The exception to this is if identifying the source could subject them to significant risk of physical harm. 3. If the source is not a player in the game, their identity, and other information that could help identify them, has been redacted. Xs in the text signify redaction. It should be noted that the number of Xs used has been deliberately randomized. Counting the number of Xs will not provide any secret insight into the source. My name is Andrew MacGregor Marshall. I am not based in Thailand. There is an excellent Bangkokbased freelance journalist called Andrew Marshall, who writes for Time magazine among other publications and authored a book on Burma, The Trouser People. He has nothing to do with this article and obviously should not be held responsible for anything I write. This story is dedicated to the people of Thailand and to the memory of my colleague Hiroyuki Muramoto, killed in Bangkok on April 10, 2010.
PROLOGUE: “THE DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY PICNIC” Late in the evening of Tuesday October 6, 2009, the world's longest reigning living monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty of Siam, was restless and alone, unsteadily pacing the corridors of Siriraj Hospital on the west bank of the Chao Phraya river that loops and weaves through the unruly urban sprawl of Bangkok. Bhumibol, a revered ruler whose towering influence during six decades on the throne profoundly shaped the character and destiny of modern Thailand, had been admitted to Siriraj on September 19, a few months before his 82nd birthday, with a mild fever and difficulty swallowing. His recovery was complicated by his Parkinson's disease and a possible bout of pneumonia, and there were worrying whispers among well-connected Thais that the king was also sunk in deep depression. Even so, by the first week of October his doctors pronounced him well enough to be discharged to the nearby Chitralada Palace, where he had lived for most of his reign. But Bhumibol declined to go home. He remained at Siriraj, in a 16th floor room in a special section reserved for royal use in one of the hospital's towers. On October 4, a full moon hung in the sky over Siriraj, heralding the start of the holy kathin month in the ancient Theravada Buddhist tradition, an auspicious time for merit making at the end of the rainy season and the beginning the rice harvest. Two nights later, Bhumibol rose from his bed and went for a solitary walk along the quiet hospital corridors. Pausing at a window and gazing out into the Bangkok night with his one good eye, the king looked across the river, past the soaring silhouette of Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, to the opposite bank and the golden spires of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace that for more than two centuries, since the founding of the Chakri dynasty, have represented the heart of spiritual and royal power in Thailand. They were shrouded in darkness, lost and invisible in the gloom. Bhumibol sent orders that the lights of the Grand Palace were not to be turned off during the night. He wanted to always be able see it from his hospital on the far side of the Chao Phraya. In Bangkok's frantic jumble of slums and shophouses, luxury high-rise condominiums and decrepit apartment buildings, stretching away to the horizon from Bhumibol's hospital windows, and in the constellations of provincial towns and rural villages beyond, many millions of Thais were anxious and fearful of the future. Millions were angry, too. Thailand was troubled and divided, and Bhumibol's illness seemed to be a reflection of the disorder that afflicted his kingdom, and a disquieting omen of turmoil to come. A decade earlier, brash Chinese-Thai telecoms billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra had launched an unprecedented effort to transform Thai politics with his authoritarian "CEO-style management" of the country. Thaksin had been more spectacularly successful than anyone had expected - so successful that the elderly courtiers and bureaucrats surrounding the king had come to view him as a dangerous rival to Bhumibol and an existential threat to the very survival of the Chakri dynasty. And so Thailand's establishment had turned on Thaksin. The escalating struggle threatened to tear the country apart, exposing deep ideological, social, regional and economic faultlines that belied the official myth of a harmonious and contented "Land of Smiles". A proud nation that just a few years before had symbolized the emergence of Southeast Asia as a dynamic developing and democratizing region was suddenly flung backwards into conflict, self-doubt and confusion.
Page 1: THAILAND’S MOMENT OF TRUTH A SECR
Page 5 and 6: In June 2006, King Bhumibol marked
Page 7 and 8: Within months of the Diamond Jubile
Page 9 and 10: and news reporting. And through tec
Page 11 and 12: through military rule and the strug
Page 13 and 14: In many cases, it is difficult if n
Page 15 and 16: Another element of the crackdown wa
Page 17 and 18: have just accepted defeat and given
Page 19 and 20: Bhumibol eventually passes. … The
Page 21 and 22: ousing demagogues. The Yellow Shirt
Page 23 and 24: its claim to be a serious work of h
Page 25 and 26: of his pocket, I didn't know he had
Page 27 and 28: - - - - - In the 1920s, a young Bri
Page 29 and 30: knees when in the presence of a pri
Page 31 and 32: he would paddle off from the Grand
Page 33 and 34: Through disciplined training, astut
Page 35 and 36: victory over the communism that thr
Page 37 and 38: politicians in the current generati
Page 39 and 40: On February 23, 1991, Thai generals
Page 41 and 42: At 6 a.m. on the morning of May 20,
Page 43 and 44: is the monarchy. Occasionally, the
Page 45 and 46: IV, and unable to eat. Subsequent o
Page 47 and 48: has meant to the fabric of national
Page 49 and 50: II. “LOVE OF FLYING AND WOMEN”
Page 51 and 52: From King Rama to the Crown Prince,
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Asked by the magazine if he was hur
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with his second mistress in the ret
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The other way is to do too much, us
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Men - a brief primer": The 19 elder
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From the end of the 1990s, before h
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Thaksin added that he believed that
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of family. At one point in the conv
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November 13. We began by talking ab
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Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya
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III. “FEAR AND LOATHING FOR THE Q
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PAD and the police. Even some figur
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Queen Sirikit aspired to be not jus
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The cable quotes a separate source
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come back from the same market wher
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information about militants. COMMEN
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southern conflict: the infamous 200
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media”: GEN Anupong, PM Abhisit,
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large blue diamond stolen by a Thai
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the country's delicately beautiful
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Within his own royal court, Bhumibo
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The ladies-in-waiting who are left,
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y rival cohorts and disgruntled off
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in the past. But a bitter Samak tol
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In January 2009, after the pro-Thak
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The Privy Council is comprised of 1
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Sumet and Disathorn may not be hous
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Niphol and the party, Kraisak fumed
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THAILAND'S MOMENT OF TRUTH - ZENJOURNALIST

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