Thailand King ill in hospital

From Times Online
September 22, 2009

Thailand’s King Bhumibhol Adulyadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch and the object of intense devotion among many Thais, has spent his night in hospital, underlining the atmosphere of crisis and division in the country.

His doctors said that the 81-year old king’s his condition had improved since Saturday when he was put on antibiotics and an intravenous drip after suffering fever, tiredness and loss of appetite. “In the past 24 hours his Majesty has less fever but he still has a loss of appetite,” the royal household bureau said in a statement read out on national television. “The medical team is still giving him antibiotics and nutrients.”

But the mere fact of the king’s indisposition, after some of the most tumultuous and chaotic months in modern Thai history, is a reminder of the degree to which the country’s stability depends on his continuing survival – and of the uncertainty that is likely to follow his death.

King Bhumibol’s illness came at the end of a tense day in Thailand, and after three years of bitter division, conflict and political instability. On Saturday, tens of thousands of supporters of the deposed former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, marched through Bangkok to mark the third anniversary of the military coup which propelled him from power.

“Three years after the coup, our country has slid backwards,” Mr Thaksin told supporters of the so-called “Red Shirt” movement, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), via a videolink from his exile in an unidentified foreign country. “There is no justice in society. The longer this government stays, the bigger the disaster is for the country. Give me just six months as prime minister, and I will bring this country back to normal.”

Meanwhile, members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, who oppose Mr Thaksin, mounted a violent display of nationalist fervour at a Buddhist temple on a disputed area of border with neighbouring Cambodia. Dozens of people were injured, after the “Yellow Shirts” fought with Thai police and local villagers.

Mr Abhisit visited Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital to offered wishes for the king’s recovery over the weekend, and assured Thais over the weekend that the treatment was routine. “His Majesty's condition is not a problem,” he said. There is no obvious reason to doubt this, but the timing of the King’s illness is bound to provoke anxiety among Thais, for whom he is the object of cult-like veneration.

In the past few years millions of Thais have taken to dressing in yellow, the royal colour, in honour of the King. Thai towns and cities display posters of Bhumibhol and his queen, Sirikit, every few hundred yards. Along with his family, he is protected by a harsh lese majeste law which punishes any perceived “insult” to the monarchy – a female opposition activist was sentenced last month to 18 years in prison for this crime.

Bhumibhol is also respected for his occasional, but influential, interventions in Thai politics when he has forced compromise between squabbling politicians and appealed for commonsense and national unity.

Unfortunately, this intense affection has not been inherited by his son, the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Much of the whispering about the three times married Crown Prince is unsubstantiated gossip, although in the past two years scandalous film footage has been distributed on the Internet and on clandestine CDs, showing him and his princess, Princess Srirasmi.

An Australian writer, Harry Nicolaides, spent five months in prison for a novel which briefly referred to the romantic entanglements and intrigues” of the Crown Prince, before eventually receiving a royal pardon. A biography of Bhumibol by the American writer, Paul Handley, which also touches on the taboo subject is denied distribution in Thailand.