Word: chamlong
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Dates: during 1992-1992
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Equally important, antimilitary forces found an inspirational leader in Chamlong Srimuang, a former general who quit the army in 1986 to run for governor of Bangkok. A Buddhist ascetic, he was re-elected in 1990 and ran a notably clean and democratic administration. He put together a civilian coalition that scored heavily in parliamentary elections in March...
...recent weeks Chamlong has attracted an unusually broad spectrum of society -- students, workers, businessmen, even bureaucrats -- to participate in mass demonstrations, though he proved regrettably unable to prevent some from turning to rock-throwing violence. Gothom Arya, vice chairman of the Campaign for Popular Democracy, an academics' group, asserts that "everybody rallied behind the students: the political parties, the NGOS ((influential nongovernmental welfare organizations)) and the middle class. This represented | something very new in Thai politics. The middle class is more powerful than ever before...
...opposing leaders in Thailand's civil carnage knelt humbly before King Bhumibol Adulyadej to receive a stern lecture. The essence: cut it out. In effect the King ordered Suchinda Kraprayoon, the general who had accepted the post of Prime Minister despite his vow not to do so, and Chamlong Srimuang, the ascetic former governor of Bangkok and leader of the move to depose Suchinda, to work out some compromise. Said the monarch: "I would like both of you to talk face-to- face, not to confront each other, because this is our country . . . It's useless to live on burned...
Within hours Suchinda and Chamlong did announce an agreement. Suchinda promised that his military-dominated government would go along with some amendments to the Thai constitution aimed at reducing the soldiers' authority; parliament is to begin considering them this week. He also pledged to release thousands of arrested protesters (including Chamlong, who had been ushered from a jail cell to the King's chambers) and to consider lifting a state of emergency. Chamlong, for his part, appealed for an end to protest demonstrations that had turned into riots...
...will end the crisis. Under the key amendment a future Thai Prime Minister would have to be an elected member of parliament. But the military proved during the riots that it is determined to hang on and ready to use its guns to do so. On the other hand, Chamlong's forces for the first time united students, workers and members of the greatly expanded middle class, proving that newly affluent Thais will no longer put up with military rule as meekly as they have for many decades. And the departure of Suchinda will do little to quell the demands...