Word: thailander
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...seems unlikely that Thailand will go back to the political past. The violence in the streets showed just how much the country has changed; until then, Bangkok was the last place anyone would have looked for riots and bloodshed. Since the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1932, the country has experienced 10 successful coups, a number of failed ones and 14 constitutions. But only occasionally did violence occur in the so-called Land of Smiles. An old joke is that when a coup is attempted, usually both sides drive all their tanks into the street and then stop...
...1980s, Thai society changed rapidly. A boom spurred largely by Japanese and Western investment in chemicals, textiles, consumer electronics and other industries gave the country one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, averaging around 11% from 1987 through 1990 and slowing only to 7.5% in 1991. Thailand, a nation of more than 55 million people, is the world's largest rice exporter, a leading producer of seafood and one of Asia's top tourist destinations. Living and educational standards have expanded enormously: in 1965 only about 16,000 Thais were attending college; today the number is perhaps...
Several sparks finally ignited this mixture. As the civil war in neighboring Cambodia simmered down, the threat to Thailand from communist Vietnam, which long occupied Cambodia, also diminished. The army's aura as protector of the nation dimmed accordingly; Suchinda provoked only sardonic laughter last week by declaring that soldiers had fired into crowds in order to stop a threatened takeover by communist agitators. Despite their lessening prestige, however, the generals behaved in especially ham-handed fashion, flouting earlier pledges to restore democracy by ramming through a constitution that virtually institutionalized military control of the government -- and then having their...
...King Bhumibol was able to broker last week's compromise was a growing fear on both sides that continued bloodshed would severely damage the economy by frightening away tourists and foreign investors. It simply is not as easy for the military to maintain control of the affluent and educated Thailand of today as it was in the simpler peasant society that the nation was once, but will never be again...
LOOKING FOR ALL THE WORLD LIKE TWO NAUGHTY schoolboys, the 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...