Thailand protests may prove royal words are no longer be enough

There are calls for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, pictured with Queen Sirikit, to intervene in the current bloody standoff in Bangkok. Photograph: Sakchai Lalit/AP

King's intervention over May 1992 demonstrations matched the public mood – 18 years on there is no such common grounds

Monday 17 May 2010
By Duncan McCargo
guardian.co.uk

For many observers, Thai politics is defined by a compelling but misleading image: the then prime minister, Suchinda Kraprayoon, and protest leader, Chamlong Srimuang, sitting on the floor on 20 May 1992, while King Bhumibol Adulvadej admonishes the two former generals to settle their differences amicably. Prior to this royal intervention, scores of people, mainly unarmed demonstrators, had been killed in street protests against a government widely perceived as illegitimate. Four days later, Suchinda, the former army commander and 1991 coup maker, resigned.

As the king declared prophetically, "There will only be losers." Suchinda's career was over: I saw him a few years ago getting off a Thai Airways flight in London, a broken man in a crumpled suit. The once feverishly popular Chamlong, an ascetic "half-man half-monk", found his own route to the premiership permanently blocked.

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