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In turning his back on past role, Thai king casts doubt on monarchy's future

Associated Press - May 25, 2010

After deadly street violence 18 years ago, a military strongman and a pro-democracy activist prostrated themselves at the feet of Thailand's king as he lectured the bitter enemies before television cameras like schoolboys after a playground brawl. No more blood was shed on Bangkok's streets.

Today, as Thailand repairs its violence-scarred capital and tries to heal deepening social divisions, two crucial questions hang over the unnerved kingdom: Why did King Bhumibol Adulyadej not intervene this time, and what is the future of an institution that did so much to hold the country together for more than 50 years?

During the two-month crisis, which killed 88 people, injured more than 1,800 and reduced landmark buildings to ashes, the aging and ailing monarch remained virtually silent despite widespread appeals for his intervention – a dramatic contrast to times when just a few words from the palace were enough to pull Thailand back from the brink. Both the antigovernment Red Shirt protesters who seized areas of downtown Bangkok and pro-monarchy groups issued the pleas, saying only Bhumibol could save the day.

It is unlikely Thailand will see a replay of 1992, when the king called in Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, who had earlier staged a coup, and Chamlong Srimuang, leader of mass bloody protests against the strongman. Even then, the king stepped in after the fighting had ceased, "because he has to be sure he has made the right move," said Craig Reynolds, a Thailand expert at the Australian National University.

The king has been hospitalized since Sept. 19, is confined to a wheelchair and appears frail. His health is cited for his silence by many citizens, with some speculating that he is just too depressed to act as he sees the country spiraling downward near the end of his nearly 64-year reign.

But there may be other reasons. The king in recent years has lost some of his semi-divine aura as opposing political camps sought to drag him into the political fray, often using lese majeste laws that criminalize offenses against the monarchy, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, as a weapon against one another. If Bhumibol acted, or acts now, the old magic may not work, further weakening the institution.

Some academics and people with close knowledge of royal affairs say the king probably could not have stopped the latest violence because the conflicts were too deeply rooted and his words no longer sacred.

"The last thing he wants to do is to try and fail to use his influence. This explains why even at the height of his health and powers, he typically was slow to weigh in," said Danny Unger, a Thailand expert at Northern Illinois University.

Reynolds said: "Senior advisers in the court and various institutions would be thinking about how the monarchy must be changed to be in tune with changes in Thailand society since the economic boom of the early 1990s."

Royalists maintain that despite the periodic interjections to restore calm, the king has always held himself above the political fray, and that stepping into Thailand's worst crisis in modern times would have intensified the conflict as the sides tried to claim his favor.

The monarchists say the king has no more power than the queen of England, only moral authority based on his lifetime of good deeds, and that it is not fair that the people of Thailand depend on a sick, 82-year-old man as in the past.

"People should learn to grow up and solve the problems by themselves," Siriporn Nogsuan Sawasdee of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University said.

In a rare interview, the king himself once said: "They say that a kingdom is like a pyramid: the king on top and the people below. But in this country it's upside down." Jokingly pointing to his neck and shoulders, he added: "That's why sometimes I have a pain around here."

The tainting of the royal image may have begun in 2005, when self-proclaimed protectors of the monarchy known as Yellow Shirts took to Bangkok's streets for mass protests against then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who many believed planned to overthrow the institution.

Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup, which his supporters say was ordered by the head of the king's Privy Council, Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda. In 2008, Queen Sirikit attended the funeral of a slain Yellow Shirt protester, furthering suspicions of the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts.

"It has been clear since 2006 that the current powers that be within the palace sit on the anti-Thaksin side of politics," Andrew Walker of the Australian National University said.

The government also has accused certain Red Shirt leaders of a republican plot against the monarchy.

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