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[Gene]

"The Thai government here distanced itself on Wednesday from remarks by the Thai foreign minister that portrayed the country’s current upheaval as evidence of a society moving toward greater inclusion but that also broached what he called “the taboo subject” of considering changes to Thailand’s monarchy.

“The government has no comment on this speech,” said Panitan Wattanayagorn, the chief government spokesman. “It is not an official policy. It is his personal statement.”

The foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, speaking at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on Monday, called the current upheaval in Thailand “a traumatic experience” that was nevertheless “part of the process of becoming a more open and democratic society.” He also said, “We should be brave enough to go through all of this and even talk about the taboo subject of monarchy,” adding at another point, “I think we have to talk about the institution of the monarchy, how would it have to reform itself to the modern globalized world.”

His speech, in the remoteness of American academia, put into words an emerging viewpoint about the structure of Thai power that had been drowned out here by the din of politics and competing agendas. For the past four years, Thailand has been caught up in a series of confrontations as social and economic fissures between an entrenched elite and a traditionally passive poor majority have come into the open. Further, discussions of the monarchy are limited in Thailand by lèse-majesté laws, which impose sentences of up to 15 years for insulting the king or the royal family.

Thailand’s constitutional monarchy, established in 1932, creates no official political role for the king. But King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, the world’s longest-serving monarch, is revered by most Thais and has exerted a powerful moral force in public affairs. However, since September, he has been in and out of the hospital with a variety of ailments, and his illness has added a sense of urgency to the current struggle over the direction the country will take in the coming years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/world/asia/15thai.html