Demonstrators in the streets of Bangkok have been taking Thailand one agonizing step further toward the end of its long, often gallant struggle for democracy. If freedom comes to an end in the Land of the Free – that is what the country's name means – this will mark its demise in most of Southeast Asia 35 years after the end of the Vietnam war. Communist China is eagerly waiting to pick up the pieces.
The red-shirted demonstrators, joined by some well-meaning orange-robed Buddhist monks, are not really for democracy. They are for the return to power of an exiled Sino-Thai kleptomaniac, Thaksin Shinawatra, who tore the country apart politically and economically when he was in power from 2001 to 2006, and will wreak more damage it if he comes back.
In the last analysis, only one man can save Thailand, and he is dying in a Bangkok hospital of heart and other problems. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, has been revered by his people since he ascended the throne in 1946.
In 1973, he made Thai democracy possible by ousting a misruling clique of selfish generals during Thailand's first, genuine pro-democracy protests. In 1992, he put his country on what seemed like a lasting democratic path – and cemented his role as political mediator of last resort – by getting rid of another self–centred military junta during even greater popular protests. There is a desperate need for Bhumibol playing this crucial role one last time.
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